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Online voting app tells Senedd Tory candidate he’s a ‘weak match’ with himself

19 Apr 2021 2 minute read
Charlie Evans, Welsh Conservative candidate for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. Handout photo. Right, his My Vote Choice results.

An online voting app told a Conservative candidate at the Senedd election that he was a “weak match” with himself.

myVoteChoice is an online application that enables voters to compare their views with the candidates that are competing in the 2021 elections to the Senedd.

However, candidates have been revealing that the app has not always suggested them as good matches for their parties’ own policy platforms.

Dwyfor Meirionnydd Conservative candidate Charlie Dwyfor only scored 40% compatibility with himself, declaring himself a “weak match with myself”.

He was responding to Liberal Democrat Clwyd South candidate Leena Farhat, whose result placed her as a 76% with herself – compared with 49% for Labour candidate Ken Skates and 48% for Plaid candidate Llyr Gruffydd.

“Proud to agree with myself 76% of the time,” she wrote. “Interesting to see how close I place to Llyr Gruffydd and Ken Skates. Duw duw bois bach time to let a reasonable young woman have a go?”

myVoteChoice is led by Oxford Brookes University in partnership with the University of Swansea, the University of Bath, the University of Surrey, the University of Zurich and Cyprus University of Technology.

It is funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants scheme.


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Matt Wall
Matt Wall
2 years ago

Hi there, so my name is Dr Matt Wall, I’m one of the researchers who created this application. Just to explain how this can happen, we contacted all candidates who advertised email addresses and gave them the opportunity to answer the questions on their own behalf. However, if candidates didn’t avail of this opportunity, we used the answers provided by their party (in this candidate’s case, the answers provided by The Welsh Conservative Party HQ) to place them. We are clear about this on the ‘candidate profile’ page on the site. As such, Mr Evans’s match refers to the difference… Read more »

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