Students launch voting quiz website

Lauren Saizan

A student group on campus has decided to combat low voter turnout with their own voting website based on dating site algorithms, starting with the upcoming SGA elections.

The new website is a part of Holomua Life Learning’s Rational Vote Project, an initiative to increase voter turnout and, most importantly, to educate people on political issues, according to Pedro Benitez, economics and finance senior.

“The website will combine the algorithm used by Match.com to match individuals with representatives that best match their interests. We think that being an informed voter is hard, and wish to make this as simple as possible, while being informative and impartial,” Benitez said.

Benitez said that people can log onto the website and answer a series of questions on their personal political stances and particular issues. Then they can find out how close of a match they have to the running candidates in just minutes.

Benitez said that the most important aspect of the project will be getting people to use it.

“We are in the process of producing our very own John Oliver-esque video, which combines comedy and information to bring light to student issues and what can be done. The purpose of this is to build a pilot for an app that we will hopefully be able to implement in local elections across the country,” Benitez said.

Julie Ung, marketing freshman, said that she would use a website like the Rational Vote Project’s, especially if it involved matching preferences like on a dating website.