Net my vote

Candidates have been turning to the Internet to garner some votes.

With the 18-34 year old demographic being coveted more and more by all the main parties, a series of websites have popped up in an attempt to get young people to vote and to think about who they might vote for.

The most obvious example of this is www.rockthevote.ie. Taking its cue from the American campaign, it’s well financed, has a very professional looking site, and has a series of videos from various well-known personalities, blogs from various party members, a nationwide music tour and considerable input from student bloggers. They also seem to have a technical and operational staff the size of The White House. Plus, one of their promotion photos has gifted us with THE picture of the campaign: Trevor Sargent, Enda Kenny and Mary Lou McDonald “rockin’ out” with guitars, with models in tow. While Trevor Sargent actually looked like he’s played a guitar before, Mary Lou clearly hadn’t, and Enda looked as if he hadn’t listened to music since Pat Boone was in the charts. While Rock the Vote looks the part, it must be said that actual on the ground campaigns have been quite sparse, outside the cities anyway at least, and it will be interesting to see if they are able to inspire a greater turnout amongst young people, a task made all the more difficult by the controversial decision for a Thursday turnout.

If you’re interested in a purely informative approach, both www.mycandidate.ie and Hear Our Voice, Get Our Vote provide good information on the respective candidates in each constituency. MyCandidate has a cool map that you click on to get facts and figures on most of the candidates, but unfortunately not everyone running for election has added info on themselves.

Hear Our Voice, Get Our Vote asked every candidate in the country, all four hundred and something of them, a series of questions on their policies and, based on how they answered it, they are given a rating between one and five stars as a youth friendly politician. Sadly, just under 10% of the candidates have taken the test, which is a shame as it would have been a great opportunity for young people to see where all the candidates stood- a missed opportunity.

As it stands though, the only party leaders who answered were Pat Rabbitte and Trevor Sargent, both of whom got four stars. The rest of the candidates who answered tended to be from the smaller and more left-leaning parties, independents for whom a website like this could boost their profile and, interestingly but unsurprisingly, a few older politicians with no track record on youth issues who are clearly chancing their arm. Much props then to Galway East candidate Noel Treacy who, with the lowest score on the site, two stars, wins the prize for “most honest deputy when it would be easier to just lie”. He’d nearly deserve a vote for that alone.

For the more ideological amongst ye, www.pickyourparty.ie offers an interesting insight into the respective parties’ philosophies, and where your own fits in based on questions on a range of issues. While some of the question phrasing is a bit vague, it is nevertheless a very interesting site and may even surprise you to find out where your own positions are closest to.

By: Paddy Duffy

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