Political Website Helps Voters Find Candidates That Reflect Their Values

If you still haven’t made up your mind about how you’ll vote there’s a new website that can help you choose your candidates. A Q13 Fox News viewer told us about the site started by a Gig Harbor man.

It’s called Vote IQ and it’s the country’s first major non-partisan site meant to connect voters to their candidates and to each other.

Rick Shenkman helped launch the site 3 months ago. It’s sort of like a political “E-Harmony,” but instead of helping you find Mr. or Mrs. Right, it hooks you up with your perfect candidate.

“Taxes should or should not be raised on the wealthy in this country to reduce the federal budget deficit?”

Have you got three minutes before you fill out that ballot? That’s all the time Rick Shenkman says he needs to make sure you choose the candidates who best reflect your values.

“So, you go to this platform and you can find out who you should vote for, for instance in this state we have a quiz that allows you to figure out who you align with Patty Murray or Dino Rossi,” said Shenkman.

Vote IQ is designed to take out the guesswork by asking you 12 basic questions.

“The United States should or should not keep its troops in Iraq?”

Then, it compiles each candidate’s position on those issues. The site tracks 70 thousand politicians and their records to keep them honest ahead of Election Day.

“We research it thoroughly we find out from the public record, if they ever made a public statement, we see if they ever voted on the issue in the legislature. They don't have the time to do this work, we do and that's how we're going to make politics simpler for people, there's no reason for politics to be confusing as it appears,” said Shenkman.

Rick says after Tuesday’s Election his group will begin work on sprucing up Vote IQ for the 2012 Presidential Election.