Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is smartvote Kosovo? How does smartvote Kosovo work?

smartvote International is a online-tool that allows users to compare their own political views with those of parties in the run-up to the election. smartvote International provides users with first-hand information about the parties. It enables users not only to reflect on their own political positions, but also to learn more about the political programmes of political parties. Furthermore, it calculates which parties are the closest matches to the user. The questionnaire in Kosovo consists of 29 questions that cover a broad spectrum of political issues. The questions are answered by the parties, as well as the users. If a party is / parties are unwilling to answer the questionnaire, there is the possibility to code their answers. This means that an expert would assign the party answers based on public statements, party programmes and/or voting behaviour in Parliament. 

The matching result is based on the questions that the user answers and shows the similarities and differences between the parties and the users. It is important to note, that the goal of smartvote International is not to encourage users to vote in a certain way, but rather to invite them to seek out more information. 

How was the questionnaire developed?

The questionnaire was primarily developed by Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI). Politools provided KDI with advice on how to design a questionnaire. During the process Politools provided advice and feedback on the question selection and questions themselves. The questions should be detailed enough to reflect prospective legislative policies. Yet simple enough to be understood by the general public. 

The main criteria for the selection of questions are:

• they are concerned with current political issues;
• they originate from the programs of political parties and/or from consultations with journalists, civil society and interests;
• they do not favor one or more political party(s);
• they do not allow for multiple interpretations;
• they focus only on one issue;

How are the positions of the parties determined?

KDI will contact the parties some weeks before the election and ask them to answer the smartvote Kosovo questionnaire. Once they have answered the questionnaire their answers will be published on smartvote Kosovo. If a party is / parties are unwilling to answer the questionnaire, there is the possibility to code their answers. This means that an expert would assign the party answers based on public statements, party programmes and/or voting behaviour in Parliament. 

Do parties have the option to explain their answers?

Yes, parties can provide a short comment for every question that they answer. This can be read by the users on the website. The maximum length of the comment is 500 characters. KDI can monitor the comments in the backend and confront parties that use hate speech in their comments. Comments enable parties to provide users with additional information, nuance and clarification on their answer to the question. Additionally, by providing comments parties can reduce the likelihood of incorrect interpretation of their policy positions by users. Comments will be visible to all users on the website, but will not have any effect on the user’s matching results.

Why are there no answers for some parties?

KDI will contact all parties ahead of the launching of the website and ask if they were interested in participating. All parties that are running in the election are free to participate and will be included in the website. However, not all parties may choose to complete the questionnaire and participate in smartvote. If KDI chooses not to code their answers, then they will be listed as a party running in the election, but they will not have a profile and cannot be matched with users. 

What if a party is not honest when they answer the questionnaire?

Typically, the party-answers that smartvote has received in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Australia reflected the honest positions of those parties. There is however always the potential that they are not honest and try to answer the questions the way they think the voters want them to answer. The answers in the backend of the tool need to be published before the public sees them. Seeing as this is a pilot project in Kosovo, KDI will review the answers prior to publishing them. If they see multiple answers that are clearly different then the public statements made by that party, they will have the choice of a) confronting the party, b) not publishing the answers, c) publishing them anyways. We will advise KDI in such a situation.

How are the matching results calculated?

On the smartvote Kosovo website users answer the exact same questionnaire that parties have already answered. smartvote Kosovo compares their answers with those of the parties by calculating the euclidean distance (the straight-line distance between two-points in a multidimensional space). As a result, smartvote Kosovo presents to each voter a specific ranking of all participating parties, ranking those parties with the best matching at the top of the list. The more questions a user answers, the more precise their matching will be. We have therefore added a new feature to the website: when voters answer fewer than half the questions, they will be encouraged to go back and answer more questions in order to get a better matching result. 

How should one interpret the matching score?

The results are based on a geometric matching. Therefore, the value cannot be considered directly as a proportion of the questions in which a voter is absolutely in agreement with the answers of a party. Therefore, a match of 70% does not mean that a party has given exactly the same answer as the voter for exactly 70% of the questions. However, the order of the ranking will always represent who best matches with one’s answers. 

How can one interpret the smartspider? How is the smartspider calculated?

The smartspider is a graphical visualisation of the political profiles of the parties and users based on their answers to the questionnaire. Each of the seven axes represents a formulated goal in a policy area (e.g., Welfare State) based on 2-4 questions. Some questions have been assigned to multiple axes and some questions have not been assigned to any of the axes. For each axis a value of between 0 and 100 points can be reached. A value of 100, at the outside edge of the smartspider, means there is complete agreement with the formulated goal of the corresponding axis. A value of 0, in the middle of the smartspider, means that there is no agreement with the formulated goal. The more similar the political profiles of a party and user are, the more their smartspiders will overlap. Politools was closely involved in advising KDI on the development of the smartspider for Kosovo.

How long will one’s results be saved? How can one access them again in the future?

The answers that a user gives are saved on the computer's local storage. Users' answers will not be deleted from their local storage until they delete their cache. If a user would like to save your results for later reference, there is the option to send their results via email on the results page.

What happens to the answers in the user survey?

The answers given in the user survey are anonymous and will not affect the results. They will be used by Politools for the evaluation of the project.

Is smartvote associated with any specific political party, candidate, special interests, etc.?

No, all organisations involved in the development and operation of smartvote Kosovo (KDI and Politools), are non-partisan and non-profit organizations. Smartvote Kosovo is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and from Luxembourg Development Cooperation.