Unlock Democracy, http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/?page_id=490  the organisation established to encourage as many people as possible to vote has set up a novel way of getting over the usual voting barriers of thinking politicians are all the same or thinking its too boring to keep up with the issues. 

We all know what we care about, so Unlock have developed a quick application that asks your views on key issues and then matches that against the views of the candidates and produces a recommendation. It’s not perfect but it’s a great guide. They are launching it for the London Mayoral election.

Press release and link are below. Why not test it out and see whether you are more Boris or Green? 

Unlock Democracy has launched Vote Match London <http://t.ymlpr.net/bbuaaauuyazaumsacawmus/click.php>, an online quiz designed to help Londoners decide who to vote for in the elections for Mayor and Assembly. All ten Mayoral candidates and the thirteen political parties standing for the London-wide Assembly elections have provided their answers to a survey which forms the basis of the web application. As well as matching their views against the candidates’, voters can give specific policies extra weight. The results screen enables them to examine the candidates’ views in more detail and points them to where they can get more information.

The candidates’ responses reveal some surprising results. You may be aware that the Green Party want to lift the ban on feeding pigeons, but did you know that only the One London Party agree with them? Ken Livingstone thinks the police should let people caught in possession with cannabis off with a warning so the police can concentrate on tackling hard drugs but Brian Paddick, who piloted this policy when he was the Lambeth Police Chief, disagrees.

Vote Match has been produced in association with the Dutch Institute for Public and Politics (IPP), which has been developing Vote Match (known as Stemwijzer in Dutch) since 1989. The Vote Match system has been used in the latest European, French, German, Swiss and Hungarian elections and a version was launched earlier this year for the US Presidential Primaries.

Tags: Unlock democracy, vote match

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 8:15 am and is filed under General PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.