Facts And Questions

What is the purpose of this website?

There is a need for the general public to record their feelings about political topics of interest, in a way that is well organised, and allows governments and other organisations to take notice of what people want. Traditional polls are somewhat random, and do not allow people who are interested in a topic to express their view. Chat forums are far too wordy and people often lose the point of the conversation.

Do you expect anyone to take notice?

Most polls only require about 1000 people to take part. We hope that this website will reach many more voters than that, and with that kind of support, newspapers and governments should take more notice.

Is my information private and confidential?

Definitely your information is kept confidential. Voter profiles only contain as much information as you want to provide. If you are concerned about privacy, then please use a hotmail or gmail address or similar. If you would like us to delete your profile, then we can do that for you.

How can I see the voting results?

You can only see the voting results of each question, once you have registered and voted on that specific quesion.

Why so many questions? Why are some questions very similar?

A problem with many referendums and polls, is that the wording of the questions can lead to a particular result, but not often reflecting what people actually mean. More questions allow people to be more accurate when expressing their opinion.

Why the demographic questions about income and the like?

It will be interesting to see how people from different incomes view questions about taxes and freetrade. Different political parties may target their policies to the votes of a particular demographic, rather than the societal average.

Why can you change your answers?

This website is a living poll. It represents the views of the people at all times, and acknowledges that people change their mind from time to time. There is an intention to bring time based statistics into the reporting, so that you can see if or how societies view changes over time.

Who is behind this site?

This site was developed by Reuben Jackson, of Web Widgets Ltd. I am a New Zealander with centre left political views.

Do you expect this type of website to replace traditional polls, referendum or voting?

No. I think this website is just another way to gauge public opinion. Polls are good for observing a cross section of the public. This website will probably have a greater bias towards people with political interests, or vested interests in particular topics. However, this information still indicates what one section of the internet community thinks, with a clear demographic profile.

Is there any commercial driving factors for this website?

This website is funded by Web Widgets Ltd. Anyone can use Web Widgets to build their own voting website. Google adwords may be added to the website in the future. There is no other commercial nor political relationships. Information from this website will be made available to all users on an equal basis, irrespective of political siding.

Who picks the questions?

Anyone can suggest a question. Please contact us if you have comments or would like to suggest your own question or topic.

What happens if I forget my password or don't log in again for a while?

Your votes will eventually expire after 3 years. You should keep logging in to keep your profile active. If you forget your password, please create a new profile, and then let us know as much information as you can so that we can delete your old profile.

Why don't you provide forums?

Forums quickly become messy, with people arguing over semantics, and diverting from the core issues. On Politics NZ you can provide an argument why you (or someone else) should agree or disagree with each statement. If you don't like someone elses argument, then you can update your argument to include all the new counter arguments. This makes it easy for new people who read the debate area to see why they should agree/disagree, without reading hundreds of forum messages. ie. Stick to the point!

Will the demographics of voters skew the results?

The demographics of the internet represent a large chunk of society, but not all. We intend to provide a comparison of the demographic results, weighted against the real demographic information of New Zealand. 

What the politicians have to say about this.

You will note in our demographic section that there are a large number of Wellington based or government users of this website. We have had many responses from political parties who say their links are missing, or ask why they are not included in some of the questions. So they are taking notice. Some comments from candidates and MP's here.

"nice site, interesting idea. Once we have more equal access to technology it will create some interesting possibilities for change in how representative democracy functions and sites like this are steps down that road" -- Kath Dewar (Green Party Candidate)

More comments to go here soon.