smartvote International

smartvote is an innovative online platform, which matches voters to candidates and parties that share their policy positions. Founded by Politools in 2003, smartvote has informed voters in over 250 elections throughout Switzerland and around the world.

HOW SMARTVOTE WORKS

1. Candidates & Parties	2. Voters	3. Matching
Candidates & parties answer questions on a wide range of current policy issues.	Voters answer the same questions on the smartvote website.	Voters receive a ranked list of candidates & parties that best match their political profile.

Try smartvote out for yourself!

Contributions to democratization & civic education

Voter Mobilization & Engagement	Issue-Based Discourse	Candidate Transparency
smartvote has been shown to increase political participation and voter turnout, and encourage citizens’ interest and engagement in politics.	smartvote promotes an issue-based discourse by focusing on differences in policy positions, not ideology or character.	smartvote allows voter’s to learn about candidates’ positions on a wide range of important policy issues, therefore building a more informed and engaged electorate.

Data visualization: smartspider

One of our strong points is the straightforward visualization of complex information. The smartspider uses 6 or 8 axes on major policy fields, to visually compare a voter’s political profile with a candidate’s or party’s.

Data visualization: smartmap

Our smartmap is another strong visual tool for comparing political positions. It shows the positions of all the candidates or parties and the voter in a two-dimensional space.

Social media sharing

Candidates and voters alike can share their profiles, smartspiders and matching results easily on Facebook, Twitter and via email.

In order to provide the public with sophisticated online candidate-voter matching platforms, smartvote partners with universities, civil society organizations, local governments, media companies, etc. Join us: info@smartvote.org

smartvote provides the technical infrastructure and expertise gained from over 15 years of running online candidate-voter matching platforms. Please contact us, if you are interested in learning more about the services we provide: info@smartvote.org

Examples of Integration into media websites

Click on the articles to see an example of the integration of our inline frames

Politools is a non-profit and non-partisan organization based in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. We pride ourselves on consistent transparency and scientifically based methods. Our team is made up of political scientists, specialized in E-democracy, big data analysis, and journalism, and supported by a local, innovative IT company (Zeilenwerk).

Key facts about smartvote

• Used by 1 in 5 voters in Switzerland
• Achieves up to 85% candidate participation
• Hosted over 250 elections at the local, regional, national & international level (in Switzerland, Australia, Luxembourg, Austria and Scotland as well as for the European Union and others)
• We have over 15 years of experience in helping voters find candidates and parties that share their positions! 

References

“The next crucial reform is to help voters make informed choices … Switzerland offers the best example of the next step: its smartvote system presents a list of policy choices with which you can agree or disagree, then compares your answers with the policies of the parties and candidates contesting the election. It produces a graphic showing whose position most closely matches your interests.”
George Monbiot in the Guardian, January 25, 2017