Not sure who to vote for at this year's ACT election?
Do you want to know where your local candidate stands on hot button issues such as pill testing, light rail, poker machine regulation, coronavirus lockdowns and euthanasia - but don't have time to search for and read up on their policy positions?
As voting starts in the ACT election on Monday, The Canberra Times and Australian National University have joined forces to help Canberrans make an informed choice at the ballot box.
An ANU project, smartvote Australia is an online tool which helps to match voters to the election candidates which share their views on certain policies.
Candidates were contacted in recent weeks and asked to respond to 32 questions related to issues in local politics, ranging from land release and tax reform to climate change, cannabis laws and oversight of ACT Policing.
Voters complete the same questionnaire, with their answers used to rank each of the candidates according to how closely their views align with the voter.
ANU professor Patrick Dumont, who is leading the project, said smartvote aimed to make the local electorate "more politically competent".
Professor Dumont said that was all the more important in countries such as Australia, where voting is compulsory.
"There are positive sides of compulsory systems, but among the lines of criticism is that it also sends a number of people who are ill-informed and do not want to get informed about politics to the polls and their vote counts as much as the more politically-savvy people who really try to follow politics," he said.
Professor Dumont said the online platform also forced the political parties and candidates to state their positions on contentious topics, which they might otherwise try to avoid during the campaign.
