A new online tool for prospective voters provides the equivalent of online dating, only your date will be in the voting booth next November.
The site, www.connect2elect.com (registration required), takes users through a series of dating-game-type questions. List your top three issues, rank the most important attributes you want to see in a candidate (from "never divorced" to "business experience"), and where your ideal candidate should stand on social, political, and core belief issues (from "supports a flat tax" to "global military strength"). The site, backed by Neighborhood America, a social networking enterprise, uses a set of algorithms to assess the user's answers and generate a list that ranks candidates on how closely their positions and beliefs match up with the prospective voter.
According to Neighborhood America, which is not connected to any candidate or political party, the information gathered on the site will be used by its partners (the software and public relations firms it works with) to "analyze political data by category or in aggregate" and to look at demographic trends and political behavior. Is it the equivalent of a new pre-election "exit" poll? They'd like to think so, though there's no guarantee of the accuracy of the data they will be collecting.
—Liz Halloran
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