Try VoteSmart, the most carefully calibrated election test in Ireland

This is an important task, but it can seem complex.

This is even more true in Ireland because of our unusual system that allows us to rank as many candidates as we like on the ballot paper.

Various things could influence how you might vote: something in your constituency that matters to you, a candidate you like because of something they have done or said, a party leader who has impressed you (or not), wanting to influence which parties get to form the next government or the policy positions of the parties and Independent candidates.

VoteSmart is designed to guide you on that last point – on the policy positions of the parties and Independents on your ballot paper.

The aim is to give you an easy way to check the similarity between your views on 35 policy statements and those of the political parties and Independents who have provided us with their responses.

VoteSmart does not give voting advice. It is not our intention that participants should simply end up with a single party recommendation; rather, the results when you complete the vote test will show an ordering of all parties and Independents depending on the degree of similarity between their positions and your own.

Let me explain why we believe Vote­Smart is the most carefully calibrated and extensive voting test.

This online tool was originally developed by a team in Belgium (Professor Stefaan Walgrave of the University of Antwerp and Michiel Nuytemans of Tree Company), where it has been used to guide Belgian voters in eight general elections over the past 20 years.

It has become an integral part of the election process.

They and I were invited by Mediahuis Ireland (the publisher of the Irish Independent) to develop an Irish version of the online tool, which is being launched today.

We have spent the past few months coming up with an initial list of 75 policy statements. This process involved academics from some of the country's top universities.

The statements were then used to survey a representative sample of Irish voters and to gather responses from the political parties.

Based on the survey and party responses, this list was then reduced to 35 statements that, we believe, will help you find out which parties or Independents are closely aligned with your beliefs and which are far from them.

You will see that the statements we have selected are designed to be direct and clear. You will be invited to either agree or disagree with each one.

The parties and Independents were required to do the same. The big advantage of such an approach is that the parties had to show their true colours – agree or disagree. They were not allowed the easier option of talking past each other, as can sometimes happen in election campaigns.

Some voting tests work with a scale, which, we argue, makes it much more difficult to interpret the positions of participants using the tool.

What does it mean if I "somewhat agree" with a statement and a party "completely agrees" with it? Or if I am neutral about a statement, while one party tends to disagree and another tends to agree? All these things introduce noise and ambiguity.

There will be other voting tests operating during this election season, but what makes VoteSmart stand out is the fact that it has been tried and tested over many years in a number of countries.

From the formulation of the statements through to the processing of the answers and the final selection, everything was done according to the highest international standards.

We are launching VoteSmart in two phases: this first launch includes all the parties who are currently represented in the Dáil.

For the second phase, we have invited all other parties and Independent candidates to also respond to our survey. Those that have will be added to the tool in the coming days.

The reason for this phased approach is that the full list of candidates (for smaller parties and the Independents) is not clear until after nominations have closed, whereas we know the parties with seats in the Dáil will all be fielding candidates.

Democracy is on the line in a growing number of countries. The recent US election shows the risks that can occur when voters are swamped with misinformation about parties and their policy intentions.

VoteSmart aims to push back against problems like this, to provide an objective source of information to help guide Irish voters on this most important of days for our democracy – polling day.

As you ponder over the choice facing you on November 29, I would urge you to take the test.

Professor David Farrell, MRIA, holds the chair of politics at University College Dublin