ACT voters who use the smartvote application, which provides tailored profiles of candidates' policy positions in line with a users' responses, are more likely to seek out more political information before voting, one of the project's leads says.
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Professor Patrick Dumont, a political scientist at the Australian National University, said the tool was not designed to tell people who to vote for.
"The main influence is that people tend to become more competent about differentiating political parties and candidates. If we start asking them additional questions in surveys, for instance, they tend to be more able to position themselves and to understand what the parties and potentially the candidates are standing for," Professor Dumont said.
"It gives them the additional information we wish them to get, to cast a more informed vote."
The smartvote project, which is based at the Australian National University and partnered with The Canberra Times, has already seen about 20,000 surveys completed, which was estimated to be about 13,000 unique users.
By the end of Friday, 44,567 people had already voted in the ACT election, far exceeding the number of early voters in previous elections. It took until the last week of early voting in the 2016 election to reach a similar number.
The traditional polling day is Saturday, October 17, but voters have been encouraged to cast their ballots early to help election officials manage social distancing requirements.
Candidates have been asked to respond to 32 questions on local issues, including land release plans, tax reform and climate change. Users then answer the same questions to see how their views compare to candidates running in their electorate.
Professor Dumont said when the application launched on Monday, a little more than 50 per cent of candidates had responded to the survey but the number had grown through the week to about 70 per cent of candidates.
He said there had been some "desirable pressure" which had prompted more candidates to respond this week.
Professor Dumont said people who used the tool often went searching for more information to inform their vote, particularly if they did have a strong prior alignment to a party or candidate.
"When you get your results, which, again, are tailor-made, you have the ranking, you've got different graphical representations, but you can also click on each of the candidates who responded and you will get their responses and, if they left comments, you're also able to read their comments, to understand why they responded in one way or another," he said.
Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
