San Francisco’s voter guide is 300 (!) pages. Our ballot bot is here to help

It’s that time of year: Your mailbox is bursting with a lumbering voter guide that killed enough trees to fill Golden Gate Park and will soon end up in the recycling bin. (Sorry, SF Elections Department.) 

The nearly 300-page booklet is a master guide to the Nov. 5 election for San Franciscans. It covers general information like how to vote, the candidates for mayor and supervisor, and explanations of the propositions, with arguments for and against.  

That last part can be the most daunting: trying to understand the basics of all 15 local ballot measures, their impact on the city, and who is behind them. This year, they address City Hall commissions, police staffing, a proposal for the Great Highway, business taxes, and reproductive rights, among other issues.

We’ve got you covered. In line with our suite of bots that help you navigate the city’s charter and budget, we’ve created one to answer your questions about the propositions. The ballot bot can help you understand how each proposition will affect the city, its potential fiscal impact, and the interests trying to pass it or strike it down.

The bot isn’t perfect. Like many bots, our ballot bot may sometimes get things wrong or require extra prompting to deliver a helpful response. It was trained using the voter guide only, without references to outside context or discussion. For example, it may not know the full backstory behind a measure, cannot give opinions on measures or candidates and cannot tell you how to vote. If you’d like to double-check or dive deeper into any of the bot’s answers, you can ask it to direct you to the original source material.

Here are some sample prompts and questions you can ask The Standard’s ballot bot:

Try asking your questions below — and send any comments or concerns to feedback@sfstandard.com.