About One Term Only
A voter-led idea with public rules and visible limits.
One Term Only is a nonpartisan civic-education project asking voters to adopt a voluntary rule. This page explains what is operating today, what remains unfinished, and how the project can be challenged.
Where things stand today
- Project mode
- Live and public
- Public pledge collection
- Open — anyone may sign, and every signature must be email-verified before it counts
- Public counter
- 18 verified pledges — verified email records only; withdrawals reduce the total
- Giving
- Not open — no payment is accepted anywhere on this site
- Research standard
- Supporting and contrary evidence published, sources dated where a date applies, and corrections or challenges accepted through the contact page
- Team bios
- Published only with each person's approval — none published yet
- Contact
- Questions and corrections can be submitted through the contact page.
- Legal / launch review
- Open launch item
Representatives should be civil servants, not celebrities. The problem is not that every person changes — it is that a permanently renewable seat changes what a person owes.
Decades of amendment campaigns have not produced binding limits, because the bodies that would have to pass them are the bodies they would bind. Nothing, however, stops a voter from adopting the rule personally and applying it consistently to both parties.
Our entire job is to make that rule precise, publish the evidence for and against it, count the people who adopt it honestly, and never overstate what any of it proves.
How decisions are controlled
- Pledge and commitment wording is versioned, and each signature records the exact version and wording fingerprint it was made against.
- Every published claim is sourced and dated, with contrary evidence published alongside supporting research.
- Administrative actions are audit-logged, and published numbers are derived from verified records rather than entered by hand.
- Corrections are posted publicly rather than quietly edited, and anyone can challenge a claim through the contact page.
Discipline
There are claims we will never make.
We do not claim the rule guarantees better government, that it is a substitute for voting, that we can see anyone’s ballot, or that any number here means more than it does. The complete list is published, in full, on the disclaimer page.
Read the full listWho we are
The people behind it.
Team page in progress
How a published number gets published
Start from a record
Published pledge counts trace to verified records. Research figures trace to the cited original study, report, or dataset — including when that source reports an estimate.
Publish the counterevidence
Findings that cut against the argument are published beside the ones that support it.
List what is unfinished
Open launch items are stated publicly rather than quietly deferred.
Correct in the open
Questions and corrections arrive through the contact page and are answered on the record.
How this project is governed today
- Every published number is derived from verified records, never estimated.
- Counterevidence is published alongside supporting research.
- Open launch items are listed publicly rather than quietly deferred.
- Questions and corrections can be submitted through the contact page.
Hold us to it.
Our methodology, counter definitions, and system status are all public. If a number here cannot be reproduced from the published rules, that is a bug and we want to hear about it.
Journalists and researchers
Send press and research inquiries through the contact form and include your outlet and deadline. Common questions about the rule itself are answered on the rule page.
Contact usAdopt the rule.
One office. One term. One chapter. It costs nothing, it needs no law, and it takes about a minute.
Prefer to read it first? Read the full pledge before you sign.