Don’t feel badly if you don’t know your representative. If you are becoming politically active for the first time, there is a good chance that you do not know who he/she is. This is because congressional districts are drawn to favor the party in power. This results in the districts be impossibly complex in their borders. They don’t match up with anything; not cities, towns, counties, or geographical boundaries. During an election, you will hear all types of advertisements for congressmen, but it will not be clear which one is yours till you get to the poles. Most people have an idea of who to vote to for president, but haven’t thought about the congressman till they get into the voting booth. It would not be surprising to not remember your congressman’s name under those circumstances.

Fortunately, there is a website that solves that problem. To use the website, all that you need to do is type in your address.

To find your representative, Click on the “Home Page” link, below. Then choose the “Find Your Representative” link under “How to” section on the right side of the Home Page. (Click “Back” to return here). Once you type in your address, and click on “Submit”, your representative and two senators are listed. You don’t need to deal with your senators at this point. We know who they are from your state.

If you haven’t already, you need to record who your representative is in the website. To do this: Click on Home Page, below, then choose “Change Representative” in the upper left corner of the Home Page. This will produce a list of representatives in your state. Click on yours and then click on the button at the bottom of the page entitled “Confirm your Representative”. Once you have done this, the website will display your representative when you want to see voting scores.

Note that if the page that should list representatives from you state is blank, it is because you neglected to choose a state when you signed in. If this is the case, you need to go to the “Change Demographics” page found on the upper left corner of the Home Page. Select your state from the pull-down and save your change by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page.

This is the end of this module. Click back on your browser to return to the training screen. Click on the box beside “Find Your Representative” and click on the button at the bottom of the page to save your change.