Online Help in the Murky Waters of a Presidential Election

Authored by Scott Goldberg on November 13, 2007 - 6:09am.

Two websites that purport to clarify your choice for president in 2008 are making their way around the internet at viral speed. The first is VAJOE.com’s Candidate Calculator, which asks 24 questions and provides yes-no-undecided bubbles and an Importance meter, gauging how influential the issue will be in your decision. It’s a simple, straightforward survey, and at a minimum lets you know which of the many candidates aligns with your views. As of now almost 1.5 million people have used the calculator.

The other site is USA Today’s Candidate match game, more graphically rich than VAJOE, but effectively producing the same result. The questions are put forth in more of a traditional multiple-choice format. For example, the first questions is: Should the United States have invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein? The answers: a) No, the United States never should have gone in; b) No, because there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD); c) Yes, but now the United States needs to reduce its presence; d) Yes, it was the right thing to do and the United States needs to finish the job.

One interesting (and potentially distracting) feature of USA Today's game is the candidate graph at the bottom, which adjusts as you answer the questions. The bar graph has a small picure of each candidate's face, and as you move along the candidate you most sync with rises and falls accordingly.

Try out both surveys and see if you get the same result.

Photo by Explode