The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and Y-net Present:
The 2009 Israel Election Compass
An interactive tool to promote informed voter participation
Jerusalem, January 25—IDI’s 2009 Israel Election Compass, an interactive web-based tool developed specifically for the 2009 Israeli national elections, recorded almost a quarter of a million users during the first weekend following its release on January 22nd. The Compass allows users to orient themselves within Israel’s political landscape based upon 30 multiple choice questions. Over 4% of Israel’s eligible voters have already used the Compass, with 40,000 hits recorded in the first hour alone.
In the Netherlands in 2006, some 400,000 hits were registered to their Election Compass on the first day of its use, with a total of 3.4 million out of 12.6 million eligible voters using the Compass by Election Day. In the US, the program was available for an entire year, but never reached more than 7,000 hits in a single hour.
Based on an extensive questionnaire covering three main subject areas—Security, Social-Economic, and Religion—the Election Compass plots voter preferences onto a virtual map of the political spectrum, enabling individual voters to see which parties best match their views.
The Election Compass is available through IDI’s Election 2009 homepage.
For more information on the Israeli Electoral Compass, or to arrange an interview with project director Professor Asher Arian, please contact IDI's Director of International Communications, Mr. Barak Cohen via e-mail at Barak@idi.org.il.
The Israel Democracy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit public policy institute dedicated to strengthening the structural and ethical foundations of Israeli democracy.