Being uninformed is no longer an excuse not to vote in the upcoming provincial election thanks to a new website that hopes to make keeping up with party and candidate information easy.
VoteSmartNS translates platforms, political commitments and media coverage into easily digestible bullet points, tables and other eye-catching formats.
The project launched Tuesday thanks to the Halifax-based Springtide Collective, a 10-month-old non-partisan grassroots group that has a mission to “empower Nova Scotians to be masters of their own democracy,” president and founder Mark Coffin told the Halifax Media Co-op.
“There’s probably never been a point in any Nova Scotia election where there’s been so much information about what candidates are offering and what issues are at play,” says Coffin, “but it’s also never been more difficult to sort through that information.”
Coffins says the collective was inspired to create the website when it polled some 700 young Nova Scotians this summer on whether or not they would vote; the reason most often delivered by those responding “no” was that they didn’t know enough about the players and the issues.
The website has four key components: a daily blog curates the latest election news from media websites and other sources. A sprawling table compares the Progressive Conservatives, Liberals and NDP’s platforms (the Green Party’s will be added soon), organizing the points in plain language by categories — healthcare, education, taxation, etc. — and along similar lines.
In progress are a “commitment catalogue,” which keeps track of the commitments party members make outside of their platforms, and a page that will feature videos by politicians and citizens on key issues.
Coffin stresses that VoteSmartNS strives to be unbiased in its delivery of content. It encourages readers to submit links for curated content, in order to keep the website as balanced as possible.