Why does SVT make election compasses?
The purpose of the election compasses is to help Swedish voters in a serious but still entertaining way to orientate themselves on current political issues and to provide more facts about where the parties stand in relation to the voters' own opinions.
In a simple way, we highlight both national issues and local issues in the election and at the same time give the parties a platform where they can tell voters what they are doing for politics.
Why do you make election compasses for all three elections?
We want to increase interest in political issues and give voters a better basis for decisions before the elections to the Riksdag, municipalities and regions.
The local elections are important for everyone in Sweden but are often overshadowed because we in Sweden have parliamentary elections and local elections at the same time.
Using election compasses is very popular.
According to previous surveys, up to half of the electorate have made some form of election compass ahead of the recent elections in Sweden.
When it comes to voters under 30, the figure is significantly higher.
It encourages us to do a good and qualitative job when we design our service.
Which parties may be included in the election compasses?
We have invited all parties that received at least one seat in the Riksdag, regional and municipal elections in 2018. The reason is that a basis based on the policy pursued is needed to construct a compass.
Parties that do not have a seat in the decision-making political assemblies are thus not included.
On the other hand, of course, our news programs cover new interesting political initiatives and parties.
We count parties that have merged with another party during the term of office as a new party without a mandate.
Parties that have closed down during the term of office or that have given notice that they will not run in the 2018 election, we have not sent any invitation to.
A local / regional party that divides and becomes two different during the term of office - can both parties then be included in the election compass?
Our basic principle for participation in the election compass is that only the part of the party that represents the party that was elected in the previous election are those who are part of the compass.
But we take a stand on this type of problem when it arises.
It is difficult to predict all variants that may occur.
How have you done to get all the party representatives?
Already at the turn of the year, we began the work of getting in touch with all local party representatives.
It is about 2500 pieces that in total represent over 150 different parties.
In addition to the large national parties running in the municipalities, there are thus over 140 different local parties that are represented in the local elections.
Through the parties' own organizations and websites, we have obtained more or less all party representatives and invited them to participate.
However, we can not force the parties to respond so in cases where they do not want or for various reasons choose not to participate, we can not do anything about it.
How have the local compass questions been developed?
For each municipality and region, there are a number of unique questions that have been developed with the help of the answers we received from the parties at an early stage.
It was about what issues the parties themselves locally wanted to pursue in the election.
In addition to this, we have supplemented with current and local compass questions that we have received tips on from SVT's own newsrooms around the country and other local media that also publish our local election compasses.
A number of the questions that are asked are thus completely unique for each municipality or region, but there are also a number of questions that are asked to all municipalities and regions across the country.
These general questions also mainly consist of factual questions that we have noticed appearing in the answers of many of the municipal and regional parties and which we therefore think can be asked of the parties all over the country.
We also have some questions that we ask the local parties that are decided at the Riksdag level.
These issues affect municipalities and regions in their daily activities and we have therefore found it interesting to also see the attitude of the local parties in the issue.
Some parties have also stated that they are working locally to push for those issues.
What is important to keep in mind when developing election compass questions?
The questions are designed to be topical, party-separating and easy to decide for both the voters who make the election compass and for the party representatives who are to answer the questions.
We have also strived for a good balance between positive and negative issues based on different political orientations and strived for all the major parties to have a profile issue in the question battery.
In order to produce good questions, we have in the autumn of 2021 started by producing around 100 general questions from the start in order to get as wide a range of topics and issues as possible to work with.
These have since been reduced to 50 questions plus a number of prio questions that we asked the Opinion Laboratory at the SOM Institute at the University of Gothenburg to do a panel test for us.
This test resulted in a research report that we had as an important source.
Thinning of the questions was done based on both the results from the panel tests and after standard user tests.
Some issues were also removed, added or rewritten based on the fact that we strive for a political balance and to bring in new current political issues.
In addition to SVT's own political experts, we have also used advisers in the form of external political scientists as well as experts and experienced election compass constructors from our partner Altinget.
How is the match between me and the parties calculated?
When calculating the matching percentage, both the stated answer alternative and whether you have entered the question as “extra important” or not are included in the calculation.
If you have stated the question as "extra important", that question will have a greater impact than other questions on the end result.
In different positions on that issue, you are distanced more, in the same opinion in the issue, you will end up closer to each other compared to if you have not stated the issue as extra important.
Theoretically, it is possible to get both 100% and 0% for all parties and parties / candidates that you compare yourself with.
In the compass we have three different kinds of questions.
There are a number of statements to take a stand on, some more or less questions and a priority question, where both parties, candidates and voters can choose up to three proposals in which areas they think are most important.
All answers are weighed into the match.
Which parties do I match against?
You are only matched against the parties that have chosen to respond to the election compass.
On the start page before you start making the compass, you can see which parties have responded and which have not yet.
If you are missing another part of your local compass, it is due to one of the following:
They have not had a mandate since the 2018 election.
They have informed us that they will not run in the 2022 election.
They have not been able or willing to participate in the Election Compass.
Which parliamentary candidates can I be matched against in the parliamentary compass?
We have offered all parliamentary candidates for the current eight parliamentary parties the opportunity to answer our election compass questions and fill in their profile pages, regardless of where on the parliamentary ballot paper they appear.
In order for the candidates to be able to answer in a safe way, we have been dependent on receiving correct contact information from the parties themselves.
As some parties have chosen to only give us the contacts to their candidates in an electable place, about 4,400 candidates (out of a total of 5,500) have received an invitation to participate in the election compass.
How come there are candidates from other parts of the country that I am matched against?
The parties can have different types of ballot papers and in the Riksdag, everyone who stands in the election can do so all over the country.
Some parties only have ballot papers for the various constituencies in the Riksdag, while other parties also have so-called "All the country" ballot papers, which means that the candidates on these ballot papers are eligible for election throughout Sweden, regardless of their place of residence.
If you want to know which candidates are eligible in different parts of the country, you can go to the election authority's website.
Can I trust the result?
The results you get show how well your own opinions agree with the parties that answered the election compass in the questions that are included in the selection.
However, this does not mean that one should see the result as a call to go and vote for the particular party that received the highest match percentage.
In many cases, there is also quite a bit of difference between the parties that have received the highest match percentage, so also look at other parties that are at the top.
According to political scientists, there are many factors that play a role in which party choice you make that are not covered by an election compass: what basic sympathies you have, what you have traditionally voted for before, if you think the party and its representatives have done a good job, if you have confidence in the party leader, etc.
The result of the selection compass should therefore only be seen as one of many components.
How do you handle the privacy aspect?
SVT has built the election compasses in a way that makes it very difficult to link a result from an election compass to any personal information such as an IP number.
However, we store your answers and results in your browser via what is called "local storage".
But it is not available to anyone who does not have access to the same browser.
You can choose to delete the information yourself by clicking on the link "Reset the selection compasses" from the home page on the selection compass or clearing "local storage" via the web browser.
However, the results page is also saved in your own web history.
If you want to be sure that no one will find out about your result, you should first clear your web history and then turn off your browser before leaving your computer, tablet or mobile.
SVT does not save any personal data linked to how individual visitors answered the various questions in the compass.