Election website aims to help voters make 'informed decision' on candidates

A website created by a University of Limerick lecturer has seen a spike in traffic in recent days as the country prepares to vote in the General Election.

WhichCandidate.ie aims to help voters make the correct decision for them as the country goes to the polls on Saturday, February 8.

The site, the brainchild of politics lecturer Dr Rory Costello at UL, aims to inform voters about policy decisions of the candidates in their constituencies.

Dr Costello said it is "a tool that’s designed to try and help voters make an informed decision”.

“Some voters already know who they’re going to vote for, they might be aligned with a particular party. But for many younger voters in particular or people that might be voting in their first election, they often find it hard to decide and to make up their minds about who they should be voting for.

“You, as a voter, can simply go onto our site and answer the same questions and you can see who you agree with and who you disagree with on each of those issues,” he added.

Rough summary of party orientations, based purely on party responses to our questions (available on https://t.co/GH0p9QlCEN) #GE2020 pic.twitter.com/7Wj4jzrhzY

— whichcandidate (@WhichCandidate) January 31, 2020

Dr Costello said that his team sent out questionnaires to all of the political parties and candidates and compiled their answers on the site.

The site covers a range of issues and topics like taxation and spending, housing, welfare and health, immigration and European integration.

“Hopefully people can find questions in there that they care about and then when they give their views of those questions, they can see which candidates share those views and also which parties share those views," he said.

The website was piloted for the 2014 local elections locally in Limerick and then nationally for the 2016 general election when it was used by over 100,000 voters.

The website has been up and running for the past week for the 2020 general election and has had 66,000 sessions already.

Dr Costello anticipates it could hit 200,000 sessions by polling day.

Visit the website here and see which candidate in your constituency is the best match for you.