Election Matrix

Monday, 8 November 2010 | Chris White

AREA/ITEM Lab Lib Grn
(Weight of importance 1-3) (evaluation: low – high, 1-5)

Personal Ethics
Abortion ___ ___ ___ ___

Euthanasia ___ ___ ___ ___

Bioethics ___ ___ ___ ___

Pornography ___ ___ ___ ___

Sexualisation of young ___ ___ ___ ___

Removal of sex bias/discrimination ___ ___ ___ ___

- but not accepting gay marriage ___ ___ ___ ___

Social Ethics

Housing ___ ___ ___ ___
Poor ___ ___ ___ ___

Disabled ___ ___ ___ ___

Religious tolerance ___ ___ ___ ___

Economic management ___ ___ ___ ___

Health ___ ___ ___ ___

Mental Health ___ ___ ___ ___

Education ___ ___ ___ ___

Alcohol & drugs ___ ___ ___ ___

Law & order; prisons ___ ___ ___ ___

Environmental Ethics

Energy (oil/coal/CC&S/wind/solar/tidal) ___ ___ ___ ___

Water (rivers/buyback/desalination) ___ ___ ___ ___

Climate change reduction ___ ___ ___ ___

Forest & species preservation ___ ___ ___ ___

Other recycling ___ ___ ___ ___

Transport policy (Public, rail etc) ___ ___ ___ ___

Overall factors

Ability to govern/influence                      ___                                ___     ___     ___
Assessment of leadership                      ___                                ___     ___     ___
Acceptance of individual conscience       ___                                ___     ___     ___
Integrity, transparency & accountability ___                                ___     ___     ___

TOTAL RATINGS ___ ___ ___ ___

Comments

Bill Walker
November 9, 2010, 10:27AM

Chris, this is a really helpful matrix. I am inclined to think that some weightings are needed especially for the overall factors. My main problem is one of time to complete the research needed to fill it out!
To make it practical for voting one further area to cover concerns the criteria for assessment of the candidates themselves. Maybe you can help us with that too?
regards Bill

Chris White
November 10, 2010, 11:27AM

When I originally did this for the Federal Election, I allocated weights between 0 and 10, but totalling 100, for each item in the three areas (personal, social, environmental) plus overall factors.

What this approach forces you to do is allocate priorities, and get away from "single issue" thinking. It involves compromise, which many Christians find difficult, but which of course is at the heart of political decisions in this fallen world. And the more individual items you include, the less overall impact each one has on the resulting total rating.

I agree with Bill that you need to rate the overall factors (leadership, etc) and including ratings for the individual candidate as well as the party level factors is a good idea. "Integrity, transparency and accountability" has an individual candidate as well as a party/leadership dimension, and one additional one to include might be "Christian ethics of local candidate".

Chris White (10 Nov 10)

Wilson Lim
September 2, 2013, 8:55PM

I applaud the concept to clarify broader thinking. However, the grid is fundamentally though subtly skewed towards where the number of issues that appear on the list. Eg: If there are 20 items on the Social Ethics but only 10 on Personal Ethics - guess which item will by default gain more priority?

Chris White
September 3, 2013, 9:26AM

Not necessarily, Wilson. Obviously the weights can vary by size according to your preferences, and you can add other items within the areas if you feel important aspects are left out. A way to counter any perceived bias towards areas with more items would be to group like items together and allocate weights to the resulting items and groups of items, and/or allocate total weights by the three areas, then split the totals up among the items.

I have also found the ABC's online tool VoteCompass helpful in positioning me in relation to the two major parties and the Greens. Given I'm not going to blindly hand my preferences over to any of the parties by voting "above the line" in the Senate, I've grouped all the minor/one issue parties according to three categories - "absolutely not!", "Indifferent", and "they've got a point (or two)", and interspersed preferences for those three groupings amongst (or before or after) my preferences for the main three.

If you're going to vote "below the line" in the Senate, you really do need to run off the list of candidates (from the AEC website) - 97 in my case in Victoria - and make up your own "how to vote" card before you get to the polling station!

Amy Bayley
September 4, 2013, 2:26AM

A great research resource for answering questions here:http://www.biblesociety.org.au/election2013