Methodology
Build a Ballot makes it easy to get election ready by helping you understand how your local candidates and parties align with the issues that matter to you. To do this, we calculate a percentage ‘match level’ for each candidate in your House of Representatives ballot and each party in your Senate ballot.
Example: What should the federal government do to cut climate pollution?
Example: Stop fossil fuel project approvals and expansions
Example: Strengthen national environment laws to stop fossil fuel project approvals and expansions
Example:
No new coal or gas projects and fossil fuel project expansions (2)
Not opposed to extensions or to new coal and gas project (1)
For users: the rating allocated based on selection / non-selection of each policy option (unchecked = 1, checked = 2)
Perfect match (eg. user 2, candidate 2 OR user 1, candidate 1) = 1 point
No match (eg. user 1, candidate 2) = 0 points
How we determine ‘match level’
When you open the Build a Ballot tool, you’ll be prompted to answer a short series of questions about the big issues impacting Australians this election. For example…
What should the federal government do to cut climate pollution?
Options:
By filling out this questionnaire, you’ll indicate your ‘agreement rating’ by selecting or not selecting policy options. *None of the above is not assessed and only allows users to skip to the next question without selecting any policy options
Parties and candidates will also be assigned an ‘agreement rating’ for each policy. They will be assessed based on a more specific ‘policy statement’ that mirrors the policy options you see as a user. Their agreement rating is based on a set of criteria for each policy statement.
Example…
Policy option: Stop fossil fuel project approvals and expansions
Policy statement: Strengthen national environment laws to stop fossil fuel project approvals and expansions
Criteria:
Once we have agreement ratings for you, the user, as well as candidates and parties, these are compared to determine ‘match points’. This means if you select a policy and a candidate / party has that policy? It’s a match!
Finally, we calculate an overall ‘match level’ as a percentage of the total available match points. Match levels are colour coded to make it easy to see which candidates are a good match while you’re building your ballot.
Above 70% match = green
40-69% match = yellow
Below 40% match = red
You will notice that some candidates or parties do not have a match level and are colour coded ‘grey’. This is because we could not find enough publicly available information to score them and they did not respond when contacted. You can find out more about how we assess candidates and parties here.
This match level is just a suggestion. We know that there are lots of different issues that impact Aussies and couldn’t include every single one of them in the questionnaire (without making it take hours!). That’s why we don’t automatically allocate any preferences. You get to decide exactly how you vote.
We recommend you use your match level as a starting point, do some extra research (there’s a heap of additional resources in our research hub!) then order your candidates and parties in a way that truly reflects your values.
Got a question? Send us an email to hello@buildaballot.org.au
If you’re a party or candidate and want to review or complete your assessment, please contact tool@buildaballot.org.au