Benefits for Voters
Voters can take a survey to discover which candidates in their constituency they agree with on a range of issues, or they can browse candidates' profile pages to find out more about them.
Issues
We provide balanced information on the key election issues.
Candidates
Browse profiles of all election candidates in your constituency.
Voter Match
Discover which candidates share your views on the issues you care about.
Compare
See how your views compare with other voters in your constituency
Benefits for Candidates
Communicate Your Message
Get your main campaign message across to voters on your free personal profile page.
Enhance Your Visibility
We partner with a range of national and local media outlets and attract a large volume of traffic from voters.
Increase Your Vote
You will be recommended as a vote match for voters who share your views.
Level playing field
WhichCandidate is a free service where all candidates are treated equally.
FAQ
What is WhichCandidate?
WhichCandidate is a ‘voting advice application’ that allows voters to compare their own policy views with those of the candidates standing for election.
It aims to inform voters about the policy positions of candidates and to help voters to make a more informed voting decision.
How does it work?
A set of relevant policy issues are selected by the research team in advance of the election. Election candidates are contacted to complete a questionnaire on these issues. Each participating candidate is given a public profile on the website, incorporating their answers to the questionnaire.
Voters who visit the website are asked the same set of questions, and their answers are compared with the answers of the candidates. A customised results page is then presented to each user, containing a ranking of candidates ordered by how closely their answers match.
How is the ranking calculated?
Rankings of candidates are based on the ‘percentage match’ with the user. This is the percentage of issues on which the candidate has the same position as the user, out of all the issues on which the user expressed an opinion.
For example: a user expresses an opinion on 10 issues, and on 5 of those issues the user’s position is the same as Candidate X. In this case, the percentage match between the user and Candidate X is 50%.
Some issues are more important to me than others. Can this be taken into account?
You first select the issues that are important to you, and you are then presented with questions related to those issues. You will only be matched with candidates on those issues. In addition, if there are any specific questions that you are not interested in, you can simply select 'no opinion' and they will be excluded from calculation.
Some candidates appear to be missing
We endeavoured to contact all declared candidates. Some candidates have declined to share their policy views with us and are not featured on the website. If you would like to see more candidates from your area on the website, please urge them to contact us and complete the survey.
If you are a candidate and were not contacted by us, please let us know.
Is it independent?
WhichCandidate is not associated with any political party or election candidate. It is run by researchers at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick. It is supported by funding from the Irish Research Council.
Who do I contact?
Any queries or feedback on WhichCandidate can be sent to Rory Costello at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick rory.costello@ul.ie
Partners
Our primary media partner is The Irish Times. We work closely with the political staff of The Irish Times in identifying the relevant issues in each election. The Irish Times also provides coverage for WhichCandidate during election campaigns, and publishes our analyses of the policy positions of voters and candidates.
For the General Election 2016, we will also be partnering with local media outlets throughout the country.
Media Coverage
About Us
WhichCandidate is based in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick, and has received funding from the Irish Research Council. Our goal is to make elections in Ireland more transparent and to give voters the information they need to make the right decision. With an ever growing list of new parties and independents, the choice for voters has become more complex than ever. We want to make it easier for voters to compare candidates based on their positions on issues of major national importance.
To date, WhichCandidate has served voters for the 2014 local elections in Limerick, the 2014 byelections in Roscommon-South Leitrim and Dublin South-West, and the 2015 byelection in Carlow-Kilkenny. We will run on a nation-wide basis for the first time in the 2016 General Election.
Rory Costello
Director rory@whichcandidate.ie
Rory is a lecturer in politics at the University of Limerick. He previously worked on a number of other ‘voting advice’ tools, such as the EUVOX project for the 2014 European Parliament elections.
Achillefs Papageorgiou
Project manager and data analyst
Achillefs has a PhD from University of Tampere. He previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher in University of Helsinki.
James McBride
Data Analysis james@whichcandidate.ie
James is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick. He was previously director of the Irish Social Science Data Archive.
Software Development john@whichcandidate.ie
John is an engineer and software developer. If something is broken it's probably his fault.
Advisory Board
It is extremely important to us that the questions we ask candidates and voters are balanced and impartial, and that they cover the most important issues. Our Board consists of a distinguished panel of experts on Irish politics, who assist us in devising the questions.
Maura Adshead
Senior Lecturer in politics, University of Limerick
David Farrell
Professor of politics, University College Dublin
Gary Murphy
Professor of politics, Dublin City University
Eoin O’Malley
Senior Lecturer in political science, Dublin City University
WhichCandidate get in touch
We welcome your commments, questions and feedback!