Vote Compass Egypt is now online

In cooperation with Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW), Al Jazeera and a host of Egyptian media partners, Vote Compass Egypt was launched on Monday November 15.
This online tool helps Egyptian voters find out which political party most closely reflects their views. Earlier this month, Vote Compass launched a similar website in Morocco and also developed a Vote Compass for the first democratic election in Tunisia.
Vote Compass Egypt is developed by a team of outstanding Egyptian academics from both Cairo University and the American University Cairo. To provide a high quality and reliable source of party positions on salient issues, the team of Prof. Mazen Hassan and Prof. Ibrahim El Nour have cooperated with an international group of scholars from the region.

After answering 30 statements covering the most relevant issues during the upcoming Egyptian parliamentary elections - which start on November 28th - users are placed among the most important political parties that make up the new political landscape of Egypt.

Vote Compass Egypt allows users to compare their own views with the positions of the parties and is completely transparent: the positions of parties on the issues are justified with a text section of their party program or from their party website. All users have full access to this information.

To promote the website and to publicize the results of our analysis, Vote Compass collaborates with international and Egyptian media partners such as Al Jazeera, Al-Hayat TV, Shourouk News, Masrawy, MSN Arabia and Fatakat. In the course of the elections, more media-partners will join to help Egyptian voters in making the important decision of who to vote for in this first democratic election.
Vote Compass Egypt is available in both Arabic and English on www.masr.bosala.org

Radio Netherlands Worldwide brings Vote Compass worldwide

Elections Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia 2011

RadioNetherlands Worldwide and Free University Amsterdam have come together to introduce innovative Vote Compass websites for elections in new democracies all over the world. This means that, for the first time, voters in these elections will be able to use these sites compare their political opinions to those of the parties and candidates.

The organisations are currently jointly developing Arabic and English Vote Compass sites for upcoming elections in Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia. Over the next months several 2012 Vote Compasses will be developed and released for election campaigns other (Northern) African countries. As well as providing voters with access to transparent, high quality information on political competition, the input of site users will also generate fresh insights into the political opinions of Moroccan, Egyptian and Tunisian voters.  

In countries where one can speak of ‘Twitter and Facebook revolutions’, online technologies have clearly contributed to the recent movements towards democracy in the region, and the Vote Compass sites are a novel form of online political technology. Many voters, and especially younger voters, have already become accustomed to engaging in politics  via the internet.

Due to the limited dispersion of internet connectivity in the Arabic countries and Africa, the Vote Compass will not be solely available as a website, but also as a ‘lite’ version for mobile phones. For those voters who are unable to use either the internet or a mobile phone a special Vote Compass will be developed for publishing in newspapers.

Editor in chief Rik Rensen of Radio Netherlands Worldwide explains: “The cooperation fits in perfectly with our activities focused on freedom of speech. Imagine whole generations in countries like Tunisia and Egypt growing up under dictatorial governments. For them freedom of political choice is a new and mostly complicating concept. It is an important task of Radio Netherlands Worldwide to give people, especially in those countries, reliable information on their political situation, in their own language. And by these means help them to make their own decisions.”

What is Vote Compass?

Vote Compass a non-partisan web application that aims to engage voters in elections by informing them which political party is closest to their own political preferences. Vote Compass is an easy-to-use tool that asks voters their opinion on relevant political and social issues and them compares these individual preferences to the position of all relevant parties in these issues. It informs voters about which parties that are running in the election and where these parties stand on the important issues. Voters can thus make a better-informed party choice and this will boost turnout at elections.

How does it work?

Visitors fill out an online survey with around 30 relevant political issues. Our academic team – composed of distinguished native country experts on electoral politics – have positioned these parties on the issues based on their formal party documentation and campaign material. This is done by an academically sound and totally transparent method. Users can see the source that backs up each position recorded for the parties on the issues. These justifications for party placement may represent extracts from official election manifestos, party websites, policy documents of parties and statements made by the party during the election campaign. The inclusion of these justifications allows voters to not only see where the different party stands on the issues, but is also shows the argumentation that parties use to defend their stance.

Vote Compass gives voters a nuanced portrayal of the political landscape

Vote Compass does not give you a one-sided voting advice, but positions each user in the political landscape. It simply shows which parties are close to your views and which parties least represents your political profile. In this manner, it does not lead you to a single ‘forced’ party choice, but it gives the user a nuanced portrayal of your distance from all parties in the political spectrum. Users can analyse their position in various ways, so that they can decide for themselves which party they find the most appropriate. Voters can also indicate which issues are important to them and which are less relevant for their party choice. By simply selecting issues, users of Vote Compass can recalculate their position in the landscape on only those issues they find most important to them.

Is it independent and objective?

The Vote Compass is an academic project, unaffiliated with any party, candidate or government. The tool is designed in such a way as to allow complete impartiality and total transparency. Information is gathered by an academic team, who are all experts in election studies with specialized knowledge of the country being surveyed. Our research team wades through speeches, manifestos, policy statements and interview transcripts to provide each voter with a clear and concise perspective on where the parties stand. Each position is authorised by the parties themselves and the text underpinning the positioning can be seen by each user by simply clicking on each of the party logos in the political landscape.