Maintaining An Election

As the presidential election draws closer, the pressure to learn about each candidate and figure out who might be the best choice grows. A new site, Glassbooth, is aiming to make this task a little bit easier by doing all the research for you. The first step in the process is a quiz, in which users have 20 points to assign to major issues (e.g. the environment, Iraq, immigration and healthcare) in accordance to their importance to the user. Once the point values are assigned, a set of questions based on those issues most important to the user appear. Users rate each question on a scale ranging from “strongly opposed” to “strongly support.” Additionally, certain phrases or terms in each question link to explanations on Wikipedia, which in turn offer more information on concepts such as "privatized social security", "guest worker program" and "unilateral", which help users to make more informed decisions. Once these questions are answered, Glassbooth presents the three candidates whose campaigns most closely embody the user’s thoughts and opinions, broken down by the issues they selected in the beginning. A click on each issue reveals the candidate's position on that issue, as well as links to quotes and videos depicting the particular candidate’s stance on the issue. Users curious to know where other candidates in the running stand in terms of their views can choose from a fourth candidate drop down menu to see the results. With so much information out there, the task of learning about every candidate and where they stand on important issues can be overwhelming. Often times, the issues themselves are confusing and make the decision of who to vote for even more difficult. By aggregating information, and harnessing the educational power of the Internet, Glassbooth acts as an efficient, unbiased filter. I expect this site to generate major buzz among people young and old.