Vote Compass: boon or bane to democracy?

This election, the CBC is hosting a third-party online tool called Vote Compass, which attempts to align the users' personal views with the platforms of each political party.

While it's billed as a simple tool to increase voter engagement, one political scientist believes the tool, and CBC's promotion of it, can affect people's voting behaviours in a subversive and unexpected way.

Tim Abray is a doctoral candidate in Political Studies at Queen's University. He has a background in journalism, and researches cognitive psychology. Tim's argument has two parts, the first being that voters base their decisions on far more than just a party's platform.

We make judgements based on the way people dress, the way people behave, the way they talk, they way they choose to trim their beard or not. There's an absolutely enormous list.- Tim Abray, Queen's University

To Tim, the fact that CBC hosts and promotes the tool implies the CBC believes that compatibility with a party's platform is the most important factor in voting. 

Tim argues that using the Vote Compass tool can short-circuit a person's natural vote-making decision process. For example, if a person felt intuitively that they should vote for the Green Party, but the tool tells them they align with the Conservatives, the person may second-guess their natural, democratically acceptable gut feelings. 

We've survived for thousands and thousands of years on our gut instincts, and I think we need to give them a little bit more respect. Sometimes our snap judgements are quite accurate. And sometimes we can be talked out of those and do things against our better judgement.- Tim Abray, Queen's University.

Tim says the subtle effects of the Vote Compass tool are magnified by the support of the CBC. Since the CBC attempts to be as accurate, balanced and objective as possible, people may trust the results of the Vote Compass more than would be advisable.

Clifton van der Linden is the founder of Vox Pop Labs which created the tool. He says the tool does not attempt to show someone how to vote, but simply allows people to learn more about the platforms of the parties, and where the user falls on the political spectrum. 

Vote Compass is not about telling you how to vote. Vote Compass is about understanding how your views align with the political parties on a range of issues. The issues included may not be the most important issue to a particular voter... what Vote Compass is doing is just giving you more information about where the parties stand.- Clifton van der Linden, Founder of Vox Pop Labs

Click the blue button above to hear the complete interviews with both Tim Abray and Clifton van der Linden.