BY ERIN CONSTABLE

Deciding who to vote for, especially for first-time voters, can be difficult. Decisions about what parties you support, which policies best suit your interests, and which candidates you feel will best represent you can be hard to make. 

Young people are struggling to make these choices ahead of the highly anticipated upcoming federal election.

This is where Vote Compass comes into play. 

Vote Compass is a tool used to calculate the alignment between participants' views and political parties. It is currently available for use during this federal election through a collaboration with ABC News and Vox Pop Labs. So far, there have been more than 900,000 users during this election campaign season. 

The survey includes 30 propositions gauging the user's opinion on specific issues. It then asks your opinion about party alignment and your preference for party leaders. Finally, the survey asks about your personal demographic, with questions about your gender, age, religion, education, language, place of residency, and past votes. 

Example of Vote Compass question and results. 

Student Lachlan Schoemaker, 19, is unsure about who he will vote for on May 21 but shared that his Vote Compass results were in line with where he thought they would be. The primary issue that will be shaping his vote is environmental issues like climate change. 

“I found Vote Compass quite nice and short, and the questions were simple but brief … it is pretty accurate with the kind of read it gets on a person,” Mr Schoemaker said. 

Respondents then receive their results in the form of a two-dimensional map representing political opinion, such as the example below. 

Vote Compass has been used in elections across the world such as the 2021 Canadian Federal election and the 2022 New Zealand general election. 

There has been significant criticism online around the representations within Vote Compass; in particular, the exclusion of independent candidates in the survey.

 Zali Steggall, independent MP for Warringah an eastern New South Wales electorate, wrote an open letter to the ABC voicing concern over independents and their policies being excluded from the survey. 
 

The letter outlines that voters can not input the intention or interest to vote for independents in Vote Compass, breaching ABC policies relating to accuracy and impartiality. 

Mr Schoemaker understands Steggall’s concern, but argues it's unrealistic.

“If it's a truly impartial system, it should have everyone on there, but realistically it would be hard to get all the independents and what they say [on Vote Compass]”.

Student, Angus Hatty, 20, agreed on the need for clarity within Vote Compass.

“I didn't even recognise the name of the Greens leader, so I wouldn't recognise the names [of independants],” Mr Hatty said. 

Mr Hatty shared Mr Schoemaker’s desire for more action on climate change, but said he was also worried about international relations between Australia and China, and Australia's relationship with Russia amid the Ukraine invasion.

Mr Hatty said Vote Compass did not ask questions regarding international relations.

“[Vote Compass] did ask about (the) defence budget but nothing else”. 

Regardless of Vote Compass and other polling tools, there is plenty of time for voters to be swayed throughout the campaign trail.

Both Mr Schoemaker and Mr Hatty remain undecided on who they will vote for on May 21, despite their Vote Compass results.