Vote for Policies launches ahead of General Election

Vote for Policies, an online service that allows people to see which party their views most align with, has launched its 2015 edition ahead of the General Election in May. The site aims to engage with five million voters before polls are cast.

Vote for Policies presents users with a list of policies for different areas, such as health, immigration or crime, individuals then select the one they most agree with. At the end of the survey, users are shown how their own personal values match party manifestos. The results are often surprising and demonstrate how different the UK General Election results would be if people voted based purely on policies.

In 2010 if people had voted based on policies alone, the general election would have been a massive success for the Greens, with the party’s policies on crime, health, education and the environment proving particularly popular, results from Vote for Polices showed.

The ‘People’s Manifesto’ would have also featured Liberal Democrat policies on the economy and democracy and a Labour approach to Immigration and welfare. Conservatives, who won 307 seats in the general election, came out top in only its approach to Europe.

In the six weeks running up to the 2010 election, over 280,000 people used the Vote for Policies website. This year, following a crowdfunding campaign, the organisation has set an ambitious target of reaching five million voters.

Founder of Vote for Policies, Matt Chocqueel-Mangen has previously spoken to Blue & Green Tomorrow. He explained that in the long-term Vote for Policies want to encourage more voters to engage with politics, creating a more “sustainable democracy”.

Blue & Green Tomorrow’s Guide to Sustainable Democracy 2014 looks at how democracy can be made more sustainable, providing answers were politicians from the major parties, leading reform organisations, think tanks and campaign groups.

You can take the 2015 survey here https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/.

Photo: Martin Bamford via Flickr

Further reading:

If public vote for policies, not personalities, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage could lose

Vote for Policies crowdfunding to support ‘sustainable democracy’

If we voted for policies at elections, and not parties, the results might surprise us all

The people’s manifesto

The Guide to Sustainable Democracy 2014