How to Use the BallotReady MCP in Claude Code

Q: Can I get candidates for an office with BallotReady and Claude Code?

Yes. Use the listcandidates tool from your terminal. You'll need to provide the office and electiondate as arguments, and Claude Code will return a JSON array of candidates you can pipe to other commands.

Q: How do I add the BallotReady server to Claude Code?

Run claude mcp add --transport http ballotready-mcp -- . Get the URL from the Vinkius marketplace. Use claude mcp list to confirm it's connected.

Q: What's the difference between listdistricts and getdistrictsbyaddress?

listdistricts is the core tool for matching an address to districts. getdistrictsbyaddress is a convenience wrapper that does the same thing with a simpler interface, making it great for quick command-line lookups.

Pipe live election data into your shell scripts. With Claude Code, you can monitor elections or candidates directly from the terminal.

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Create your Vinkius account to connect BallotReady to Claude Code and route execution through our secure gateway. The platform manages server hosting, runtime updates, and security layers. Configuration requires no manual server provisioning.

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Setup BallotReady with Claude Code

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Monitor Elections in Your CI/CD Pipeline

The `list_elections` tool finds upcoming elections for any address. In a GitHub Action or Jenkins job, you can use Claude Code to call this tool and check if a new election has been announced. Just pipe the output to `jq` to parse the results. `claude mcp call ballotready-mcp list_elections --address "..." | jq .`. It's a simple, reliable way to trigger alerts or other automated jobs based on new election data.

Script Bulk Data Exports with this MCP Server

Write a shell script that pulls a full candidate roster. Use Claude Code to run `list_positions`, loop through the offices, and then call `list_candidates` for each one. It's all done headlessly. You can take it further by piping the candidate IDs into a call to `get_candidate` to get detailed profiles for every person. The output is clean JSON, perfect for ingesting into a database or a CSV file. This is how you automate data gathering.

Create Command-Line Civic Data Lookups

The `get_districts_by_address` tool is a powerful one-shot command. Wrap it in a simple bash alias to create your own CLI tool: `alias mydistrict='claude mcp call ballotready-mcp get_districts_by_address --address "$1"'`. Now you can just run `mydistrict "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC"` from anywhere in your terminal. You get an immediate JSON response with all associated voting districts. It's faster than opening a browser.

Setup guide

Set up BallotReady MCP in Claude Code

Prerequisites

Claude Code CLI installed (npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code)
Active Vinkius subscription with a valid endpoint token

1

Run the add command

Open your terminal and run the command shown on the right. Replace [YOUR_TOKEN_HERE] with your endpoint token from cloud.vinkius.com. Use --scope user to make it available across all projects.
2

Verify the connection

Start a Claude Code session and type /mcp to list connected servers. You should see ballotready-mcp with a green status indicator.
3

Start using tools

Ask Claude Code something like "Check my latest BallotReady transactions." It will automatically discover and invoke the available BallotReady tools.

Terminal

claude mcp add --transport http ballotready-mcp https://edge.vinkius.com/[YOUR_TOKEN_HERE]/mcp

Get your connection token →

Prerequisites

Claude Code CLI installed
Active Vinkius subscription with a valid endpoint token

1

Open the config file

Create or edit .mcp.json in your project root for project-level scope, or ~/.claude.json for user-level scope.
2

Add the BallotReady MCP

Paste the JSON snippet shown on the right into the mcpServers object. Replace [YOUR_TOKEN_HERE] with your endpoint token from cloud.vinkius.com.
3

Restart Claude Code

Start a new Claude Code session. Type /mcp to confirm the server is connected. The tools will be automatically available in your conversation.

.mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ballotready-mcp": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://edge.vinkius.com/[YOUR_TOKEN_HERE]/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Get your connection token →

Independent Platform Disclaimer: Vinkius is an independent platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, verified by, or otherwise authorized by BallotReady. All third-party trademarks, logos, and brand names are the property of their respective owners. Their use on this website is strictly for informational purposes to identify service compatibility and interoperability.

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Common questions about BallotReady MCP in Claude Code

Add a BallotReady MCP server connection in Claude Code, then call its tools from a shell script. For example, a cron job could run a script that calls `list_elections` daily to check for updates and sends a notification if anything changes.

Yes. Use the `list_candidates` tool from your terminal. You'll need to provide the `office` and `election_date` as arguments, and Claude Code will return a JSON array of candidates you can pipe to other commands.

Run `claude mcp add --transport http ballotready-mcp -- `. Get the URL from the Vinkius marketplace. Use `claude mcp list` to confirm it's connected.

`list_districts` is the core tool for matching an address to districts. `get_districts_by_address` is a convenience wrapper that does the same thing with a simpler interface, making it great for quick command-line lookups.

The BallotReady server only ever sees the address strings you pass as arguments in your CLI commands. Vinkius provides an ephemeral, zero-trust environment for each request, so your input data is not logged or stored.

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