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ABC Vote Compass draws 270,000 responses in first 36 hours

Vote CompassAn new online voter survey ABC Vote Compass created by the ABC has received more than 270,000 responses since being launched immediately after the announcement of the election date.

According to the public broadcaster, the online tool is the biggest survey of voter attitudes that has ever been undertaken in Australia.

It was developed by a non-profit group of political scientists and through a short series of questions aims to show voters how they fit in the Australian political landscape.

“Too often Australian elections focus only on the daily movements of party leaders, with breathless reporting of brief statements carefully crafted for television,” said Antony Green, ABC election analyst.

“In modern stage-managed campaigns we see little real discussion of party policy. With Vote Compass we will be providing voters with a new method of engaging with the policy debate. We hope to use the data gathered to provide in-depth analysis of the views of Australian voters, using a different source of data than traditional opinion polls.”

CompassOnce users answer 30 questions on a range of policy areas they are shown a Vote Compass that compares their answers with the policy positions of the major political parties and displays their position on a grid, plotting where the voter stands in the overall Australian political landscape.

The ABC says it will take this anonymous data as a snapshot, to identify the key policy issues that matter to Australian voters and then report the findings as part of the ABC’s overall election coverage.

The Voter Compass is already being integrated into the public broadcaster’s news coverage with the site featuring in last night’s news.

Nic Christensen

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