Yet Another wonderful MySociety site for Web Democracy

I have been concerned with how to vote in the upcoming UK general election. I want this to be a responsible vote and it may have to be a balance between national parties and local issues. Currently I have no confidence in the UK party system and I would wish to support any MP who was prepared to fight against it either from within or without. I have more confidence in MP’s representing local issues and I intended to last them publicly what their views were on a number of issues related to Cambridge.

I have written before about the wonderful work that MySociety (http://www.mysociety.org/ ) is doing in changing democracy in Britain if and bringing it to people. Although tools such as WriteToThem allow me to contact and expect a reply from my current MP, I did not know whether there was anything allowing me to get the views of current candidates. Now I have discovered that there is a simple and effective quiz which allows me to see whether I agree with the candidate on a number of issues. Visit http://election.theyworkforyou.com/quiz/ and type in your postcode (it’s secret). Then you will find all the candidates for whom we might vote. I note that there is no entry for the Conservative candidate. Is this an error or did s/he fail or refuse to answer questions.

There are a number of prepared questions against which one can agree or disagree strongly or not. For each question the site works out how this corresponds to the views of the current candidates. At the end of the quiz it totals all responses and tells Europe and W agree with most or rather who agrees with you most. Of course this is not an instruction on how to vote, it is primarily a way of getting candidates to come clean on what they believe and to have a public record of it.

Here is a typical example.Potholes (holes in the road or on the pavement(==sidewalk)) are a serious problem for cyclists in Cambridge. Indeed quite a few of the questions relate to cycling:

Potholes affect cyclists more than drivers and cycle routes should be a council priority for repairs.

Thus the liberal candidate strongly agrees with the premise while the UKIP candidate strongly disagrees. That means that Julian Huppert it gets more points on this question than Peter Burkinshaw. After all questions have been totalled the system produces the following table.

Who do you most agree with?

According to this I agree most with Tony Juniper. It does not of course means that I shall vote for him because there are many national considerations to take into account. If it does suggest that the UK independence party will have to work hard to get my vote.

One if this is yet another example of a greater value that MySociety and other web democracy sites are bringing to us as they represent one of the few hopes of truly having a voice heard and how me and my fellow citizens should govern and be governed.