About Render
Render is a nonpartisan research project for rating elected officials and candidates based on their official acts according to the standards of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). The scoring of candidates relies on their voting history, legislation initiatives, and executive actions to give voters a straightforward, transparent, and unbiased understanding of how the candidate in question governs.
Who Are We?
We are four juniors at Regis High School in New York City. Regis is a Jesuit institution of learning, which means that we were brought up with the Ignatian idea that your faith must engage with the world and pay special attention to the disadvantaged. Render was our attempt to bring these ideas into practice.
The project itself originated from an awareness that while politicians appeal to faith, values, and moral convictions on a constant basis, no consistent method existed to assess these claims against a proper framework. Render is our answer to this problem.
What We Believe
We believe that CST is an amazing yet largely underused resource that any US citizen interested in civic engagement should utilize. CST is an objective document that does not pertain to either Republicans or Democrats; rather, it provides an exhaustive list of moral imperatives, prudential principles, and guidelines regarding almost every facet of social, personal, and professional life.
Furthermore, we believe that accountability should have evidence behind it. Hence, Render scores only the actions taken by the candidate rather than their rhetoric.
Why We Created Render
None of us are experts in the fields of politics or Canon Law - but that did not stop us from applying ourselves and working on an issue that we care passionately about. The purpose behind Render was simple: to contribute to our conception of justice.
We intend for Render to become bigger. We want it to have more information and cover all important candidates and offices. We want voters to have an easy-to-use tool for analyzing their choices. And we want politicians to realize that somebody is keeping tabs on their actions, and it is not just about branding anymore.
Impartiality Statement
Render does not endorse any candidates, nor does it have any party allegiance. We use the same methods to analyze the actions of all candidates regardless of political allegiance and make our findings public. If you feel that the score is surprising, all of our reasoning is available on the website. If you find any inaccuracies, let us know. The entire point is that Render should be auditable.
We do not intent to tell the voter how to act. Instead, we will provide him/her with an unbiased, well-researched, and properly justified piece of information to facilitate decision-making.