Social Score
This measures how much the candidate
believes government should intervene in people's personal lives or on social issues. These
issues include health, morality, love, recreation, prayer and other activities
that are not measured in dollars.
- A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in tolerance for
different people and lifestyles.
- A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that
standards of morality & safety should be enforced by government.
Economic Score
This measures how much the candidate
believes government should intervene in people's economic lives. Economic
issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.
- A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in personal responsibility for financial matters, and
that free-market competition is better for people than central
planning by the government.
- A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that a good society is best achieved by the government
redistributing wealth. The candidate believes that government's purpose is to
decide which programs are good for society, and how much should be
spent on each program.
This measures how much the candidate
believes government should intervene in people's economic lives. Economic
issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.
How We Score Candidates
How we determine a candidate's stance on each VoteMatch question:
- We collect up votes, excerpts from speeches, press releases, and so on, which are related to each question. Each of these are shown on the candidate's VoteMatch table.
- We assign an individual score for each item on the list. The scores can be: Strongly Favor, Favor, Neutral/Mixed, Oppose, Strongly Oppose. The scoring terms refer to the text of the question, not whether the candidate strongly opposed a bill, for example.
- We then average the individual scores, using the numeric scale: Strongly Favor = 2, Favor = 1, Neutral/Mixed = 0, Oppose = -1, Strongly Oppose = -2.
- If the average is above 1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Favor.
- If the average is above 0, the overall answer to the question is Favor.
- If the average is exactly 0, the overall answer to the question is Neutral.
- If the average is below 0, the overall answer to the question is Oppose.
- If the average is below -1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Oppose.
- When you do a VoteMatch quiz, your answers are compared to each candidates' overall answer to come up with a matching percentage.
- To get the political philosophy of the candidate, we sum up the answers on two scales, the Personal/Social scale and the Economic Scale. Some questions aren't used in the political philosophy calculations.
- The VoteMatch table indicates the number of scale points from each answer (any one question can provide from 0 to 10 scale points on one scale or the other).
- The combination of social/moral scales and economic scales produces a political philosophy description. A more detailed explanation appears below.
Examples
The chart below indicates how four
"hard-core" political philosophers would answer the questions.
From this example, you can see how the candidate fits in with each
philosophy. The candidate's answers are on the left.
- A "hard-core liberal" would answer social questions to minimize government
involvement, but would answer economic questions to include government intervention.
- A "hard-core libertarian" would answer both social and economic questions
to minimize government involvement.
- A "hard-core conservative" would answer social questions to include government intervention,
but would answer economic questions to minimize government involvement.
- A "hard-core populist" would answer both social and economic questions
with proposals that include government intervention.
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Final Notes
To ensure balance among political viewpoints, we arranged the wording of
the questions so that half the time, the answer involving more
government is answered by "support", and half the time by
"oppose." Hence, each of the "hard core"
philosophers would choose "support" for 5 of the Social
questions and for 5 of the Economic questions.
Many of these statements cross over the line
between social issues and economic issues. And many people might answer
what we call a "Social" issue based on economic reasoning. But
we have tried to arrange a series of questions which separates the way candidates
think about government activities in these two broad scales.
Political Map and some content from Advocates
for Self-Government.
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