Terms of use

Dutchess Voice (dutchessvoice.org) is run by a small group of volunteers in Dutchess County, New York. By creating an account, signing a petition or posting on the site you agree to these terms. Our privacy policy explains what we collect and how we use it.

Who can use the site

• You must be at least 13 to create an account or sign a petition.
• Sign each petition once, with your real name and an address where you live. Don’t sign for anyone else, or with a made-up name or address.
• Keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for what is done with your account.

What you post

• You are responsible for what you post: signature comments, comments on pages and replies, survey suggestions and banners.
• Comments on pages and replies appear straight away under your public name. A comment added to your signature appears on the petition page under your public name. Survey suggestions and banners are reviewed before they appear.
• Be civil. Don’t post anything threatening, hateful or harassing, anything false that could damage a real person, private information about other people, or material you don’t have the right to share.
• You keep ownership of what you post. You let us show it on this site, in link previews and when petitions are shared or delivered, and resize or re-save images to do that.
• We don’t check everything before it appears. We may hide or remove posts, and close accounts, that break these rules. Posts are the views of the people who wrote them.
• To report a post, use its Report button or email [email protected].

Banners you submit

• Only submit images you made or have permission to use.
• Every banner is reviewed by the petition’s admins before anyone else can see it. We don’t approve images that are offensive, hateful, sexual, violent, misleading, or that show private people without their consent, and we may remove a banner later.
• Approved banners show your public name. Likes are counted, but who liked a banner isn’t shown.

Suggestions, follow-ups and amendments

• After signing you can tell a petition’s organizers what matters to you and suggest issues, follow-up actions or amendments to the petition.
• The organizers read what is sent but decide for themselves whether and how to act on it. They reserve the right to amend the petition or leave it as it is, to publish, shorten, combine or decline any submission, and to choose the petition’s follow-up actions. They don’t have to reply to or credit a suggestion.
• Sending a suggestion doesn’t change the text you signed or withdraw your signature. To withdraw, email [email protected].
• We record which version of a petition each person signed. If the organizers change a petition’s wording after people have signed, we’ll post the change on the petition page and include it in the next update email, and anyone can withdraw their signature. When the petition is delivered, the officials are told which version each person signed.

Copyright complaints

If you believe something on this site uses your copyrighted work without permission, email [email protected] with: the work, where it appears on our site, your contact details, and a statement that you believe the use isn’t authorized. We’ll review it and remove anything that infringes.

What we provide

• District lookups, maps and the resolutions and bills we list come from public sources (Dutchess County GIS and Board of Elections, the Census Bureau, and state, county and town records). We try to keep them accurate, but check anything important with the official source.
• Petitions and residents’ studies are written by the volunteers who run this site and other residents. They set out their sources, and estimates are marked as estimates. If you think something here is wrong, email [email protected]; we’ll check it and correct it where needed.
• Dutchess Voice is not affiliated with any party, campaign or government body.
• The site is provided as is, without warranties, and we may change or pause any part of it.

Limits of our responsibility

• Maps, district boundaries, flight data, traffic, water and school figures, and lists of resolutions and bills are compiled from public records, residents’ own research and other sources that can be incomplete, out of date or wrong. Some figures are estimates, and graphics are simplified.
• Official records govern. Where anything on this site differs from the records of the Board of Elections, the County, a town, the State, the FAA or another official source, the official record is correct.
• Nothing on this site is legal, planning, engineering, aviation or other professional advice.
• Comments and other posts are the views of the people who posted them.
• To the fullest extent the law allows, Dutchess Voice and its volunteers are not liable for any loss or damage arising from errors or omissions on the site, from your reliance on its information, or from your use of or inability to use the site. Nothing in these terms limits rights that the law says can’t be limited.

Changes to these terms

If we change these terms, we’ll post the new version here with a new version date. If you keep using the site after that, the new terms apply. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York.