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Media Coverage Roundup

Posted 1 year ago | Comments | Tags: 2010 election voteforpolicies media coverage roundup

by Simon Plenderleith

Well it’s been a bumpy ride at times, but without a doubt, it’s been a thrilling six weeks or so since we launched Vote for Policies on Monday 22nd March. Since then we’ve had over half a million visitors and over 2.25 million page views, from people in 185 countries around the world. Most importantly however, you wonderful people have completed over a quarter of a million surveys!

(See the delicious charts at the bottom of this post for the overall picture when the polls closed last Thursday)

We cannot thank you all enough for your support. It has been humbling to read your messages of encouragement and thanks, as well as seeing you spread Vote for Policies far and wide. You’ve proven unequivocally that word of mouth from passionate people is still the best way to spread a message.

Amongst the madness of building the site and keeping it up and running through huge traffic surges, we saw hundreds of blog posts and forum threads about Vote for Policies, thousands of tweets and a whole ton of sharing on Facebook. Eventually the mainstream media picked up on us, and all of this helped propel us to our busiest day on Wednesday 5th May (the day before the election), when 26,542 new surveys were completed. Each day has been a new adventure, and we’re incredibly delighted that you all came along for the ride!

Here’s some link action to the media coverage that we’ve had for Vote for Policies. If you saw something on TV, heard something on the radio or read something in the press about us, please let us know in the comments below. Thanks!

The results when the polls closed on election night

For the stats fans amongst you, here’s how the results looked at 10pm on Thursday 6th when the polls closed. We’re hoping to release more juicy stats and infographics soon.

“…an interesting way to look at party politics… without having to commit to reading through manifestos and heavy research.”

TechEye

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“Always happy to see sites making politics easier to understand!”

“Surprised that I chose one party's policies across the board #voteforpolicies”

“Great tool for deciding who to vote for, based on those rarest of things: policies”

“Great tool for deciding who to vote for. Go on, surprise yourself. #voteforpolicies”

“Well, a veritable colour wheel on my #voteforpolicies results!”

“Great tool for deciding who to vote for.”

“*highly recommend*”

“Think you're a Labour/Tory/Green/UKIP/BNP/etc voter? See if your perceptions match its policies”

“#voteforpolicies was very interesting. Well worth doing.”

“Vote for policies (UK election). Interesting stats!”

“Great site to compare policies from the main parties - choose policies not personalities!”

“Good way to vote - simply confirmed my vote anyway!”

“Not sure who to vote for in the forthcoming UK General Election? Check out http://voteforpolicies.org.uk”

“This is a nice idea, seems my initial thoughts on who to go for are right too.”

“Don't know who to vote for in the next general election? Vote for policies. Anything else is just hype.”

“Vote for policies, not personalities: This is what we should all be doing, yes?”

“Pick policies not parties and find out who you should really be voting for. I was shocked by mine.”

“Rather surprised by the outcome when I did this, but found it very helpful in sussing out the political parties.”

“Objective way of finding out who to vote for. Nice design too.”

“Sounds like an excellent message.”

Don't believe the hype

Policies are what actually affect our lives – so let’s judge the politicians on what they promise to do. Anything else is just hype!