People may think that politicians don’t keep their word. A new online tool is putting that assumption to the test.
McMaster researchers are part of a team that has relaunched Polimeter, a tool that tracks campaign promises and assesses whether elected officials keep, partially keep or break their promises.
For voters, Polimeter offers a way to monitor what happens to campaign promises throughout a government’s time in office.
The refreshed version of Polimeter, which goes live on April 27, is the latest project from McMaster’s Digital Society Lab, an interdisciplinary hub that studies how technology can support social innovation and democracy.
Originally developed at Université Laval, the Polimeter website has now been rebuilt and expanded by a McMaster-led team, including Jonathan Henry, Joanna Massie, Anwar Sheluchin, and John McAndrews, with updated design and functionality.
The project is led by Clifton van der Linden, academic director of the Digital Society Lab and associate professor of Political Science. Van der Linden also leads the team behind Vote Compass, an online tool used by millions of voters worldwide to discover how their values align with the policies of the candidates for election. Van der Linden also runs The Signal, the Toronto Star’s federal election forecast model.
Polimeter, like these other tools, is designed to put more power in the hands of citizens, Van der Linden says.
“In many ways, technology is seen as contributing to the untethering and erosion of democracy,” he said.
“We’re instead using technology to strengthen democracy, by cutting through the noise and helping voters stay informed.”
McMaster’s partners at Université Laval will continuously assess the Carney government’s record on its campaign promises, and keep Polimeter updated with verified findings over the course of the government’s mandate.
Given the popularity of Polimeter — it has thousands of monthly users with traffic increasing ahead of elections — the team is meticulous about keeping the data accurate and up to date.
The team is regularly contacted by government officials who inform them of new statements or actions that advance any of the promises Polimeter tracks. But van der Linden stresses that the project maintains strict impartiality.
“If they feel that we aren’t updating the site quickly enough they don’t hesitate to let us know,” he said. “That said, we independently verify any information that we publish in relation to a promise. We don’t simply defer to party representatives.”
And so, back to the age-old question: Do politicians keep their promises? Van der Linden says they do better than people think.
“Contrary to perceptions, politicians generally keep more promises than they break,” he said. “The media tends to focus on the high-profile promises that politicians break, which explains the skew in citizens’ perceptions.
“Voters in general tend to penalize governments more heavily for broken promises than they reward them for fulfilled ones.”
Polimeter is available at https://polimeter.org.