where public figures answer on the record

About lilysurvey

What this is

lilysurvey sends the same survey to every candidate in a race and publishes the answers side by side. Every candidate appears on the comparison page whether they answer or not, so silence is visible rather than invisible. Answers are never edited or deleted: a candidate who changes their position publishes a new version with their stated reason, and the previous version stays one click away at a permanent address.

Who runs it

lilysurvey is run by Andrew Lekashman, a Pittsburg resident. It is independent: not affiliated with the City of Pittsburg, any campaign, any party, or any news organization. It is self-funded and carries no advertising.

Disclosure

Before starting this survey, the operator had offered to help two candidates in this race with their campaign messaging. That work has been ended for the 2026 cycle, and no campaign in this race receives paid or unpaid communications help from the operator while the survey is running. No candidate has seen another candidate’s answers before publication, and no candidate has any influence over the questions, the schedule, or what appears on the comparison page.

We are stating this rather than waiting to be asked. A survey is only worth reading if you can tell whether it has a thumb on the scale.

How every candidate is treated the same

  • Every candidate in the race receives the identical survey.
  • Invitations, reminders, and follow-up questions are sent by the system on the same schedule to everyone, not chosen candidate by candidate.
  • Follow-up questions on a topic go to every candidate, and the page shows who was asked, when, and who has not answered.
  • Candidates who do not answer still appear, with the dates they were invited and reminded. Where a candidate could not be reached, the page says so and why.
  • Every scaled question carries space for the candidate’s own reasoning, published word for word.

Where the questions come from

The question bank is published in full and each question has a permanent number, so a question cannot be quietly reworded. Substantive changes to wording create a new version, and answers stay attached to the version they were given under. Readers can suggest questions; suggestions are reviewed by a person before they appear, and any that become official follow-ups are sent to every candidate.

Corrections and contact

If something on this site about you or your campaign is wrong, write to us and it will be corrected with a published note saying what changed. Corrections are added, never substituted silently.

Email: andrew@lekashman.com

What we keep

Candidate contact details are used to send the survey and are never published or shared. Readers who take the community survey are not asked to create an account; a scrambled form of the network address is kept briefly to limit duplicate submissions and is never published. Every published answer is available as open data from the race page.

See the Pittsburg City Council race →