Vote for Policies is an organisation I set up in response to the problem of low voter turnout and a lack of unbiased information about the different political parties. It has been used over 3 million times.
It’s a simple web survey where you can choose the policies you prefer about a particular issue, without seeing which party they belong to. I designed the service back in 2010 and have since then been responsible for all of the funding, volunteer management, and partnerships.
But does it work?
Yes. It turns out that the unique way users can read the promises from different parties is an excellent way to become more engaged, and better informed. Typically over two-thirds of users report feeling more informed as a result of using the service (the rest ‘as informed as before’). But the real clincher came from independent research from TNS Omnibus / Kantar, base don a nationally representative sample. Key findings were:
- A third of the public (35%) agreed they were more likely to vote in the general election as a result of taking part and seeing their results.
- Half (50%) agree that they are surprised by the results – with little variance depending on which party respondents were intending to voe for.
- A fifth (20%) said they were now reconsidering who they might vote for.
“I am 36 and have never voted because I have never been able to gather the information I need to make an informed choice. Thanks to this site I will vote this year!!!”
SB