New website to help voters make General Election choice

Election Compass has been set up by academics to help people in the UK make sense of policies on offer from different political parties.

The website allows voters to give their opinion on a range of issues. Their answers to these 30 questions are then matched to party policies and the voter can see how their views compare with those of UKIP, the Conservatives, the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, SNP and Plaid Cymru.

Laszlo Horvath, from the University of Exeter, who helped to develop the free website, said: “This tool allows people to see how close or distant their views are from each of the parties in the UK political landscape competing in this election. It is a one-stop-shop for people to easily find out what is in each manifesto. People can discover in less than five minutes how their personal opinions match with those of the people hoping to run the country.

“People have heard a lot from politicians on the news or online recently and this will help them cut through all the soundbites and arguments to make a choice based on who will best represent their views.”

The questions in the tool have been devised by experts in politics and voting behaviour from the University of Exeter, Swansea, Surrey, Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit, and Kieskompas. The information about party policy has been taken from manifestos wherever available, and the website is not affiliated with any party or candidate. The team developed a similar tool for the EU referendum and 2015 General Election.