In the run-up to the elections, some citizens’ movements and interest groups wish to issue a voting recommendation. It is more interesting to recommend candidates than parties, but it takes a lot of work. WeCitizens is the technical operator, which allows to easily and more efficiently realize such a project.
 

Situation without our tool

Some groups write a questionnaire to evaluate the candidates in the elections who best defend their interests / values. The effort to contact the candidates is so great that these groups give up and simply question the parties. Following a manual analysis, they can then disseminate, by their means, the comparison of parties. Unless there is media coverage, the dissemination of results is very limited.
 

Advantages of the tool offered by WeCitizens

• The client discharges administrative tasks, and can focus on communication, voter mobilization and awareness.
• The client has many more political candidates in all constituencies.
• If the client collects the candidates’ answers himself, he risks being biased.
• The results page is dynamic (updated) and candidate names are clickable to their profile in the largest publicly accessible database.
• WeCitizens contributes to the dissemination of the results.

Services from WeCitizens: basic offer, € 2,870

1. Survey

WeCitizens revises the formulation of closed questions selected by the client, in principle half a dozen. The questions are translated to be available in FR-NL-EN-DE.
 

2. Registration of targeted politicians

WeCitizens makes a reasonable effort to find and record in its database the candidates for the elections concerned.
 

3. Collection of answers

WeCitizens sends to all parties and to all targeted candidates an invitation email to answer the questionnaire. Reminder emails are sent regularly to those who have not responded.
 

4. Campaign tool

In order to increase the response rate of the candidates, WeCitizens offers the client the campaign tool. This is a web page that allows you to send, with a few clicks, personal reminders to politicians who have not yet answered the questions. The customer can disseminate to all his supporters the URL link to this page.
 

5. Immediate publication of collected answers

Anyone who consults the Political Directory of Wecitizens finds easily and freely the answers of the political actors. This database of the political world is the largest in Belgium, publicly accessible.
 

6. Production of the ranking of candidates and parties

The calculation methodology is the same as for the electoral GPS. The customer has a link to this dynamic result page (that is, it is always up to date, given the new information collected). The customer can present the results in another design, with the mention: “Ranking calculated by WeCitizens on the basis of the instructions of [client]”.
 

Services of WeCitizens: Premium offer, € 5.600

In addition to “standard” services, this package includes:

1. Explanations

On the basis of the information provided by the customer, WeCitizens writes an explanatory note. This text of 800 characters maximum, which accompanies the question, must be neutral. It explains the context, what is at stake and, if possible, figures. The notice is translated to be available in FR-NL.

 

2. Ad

The campaign (see (d) above) is announced in the newsletter of WeCitizens, which is sent to over 90,000 recipients, including political journalists.
 

3. Political parties

If the political party reminder e-mail has no effect, more personal steps are taken to obtain party responses. This concerns parties with at least one MP.
 

4. Explanation page (operational service soon)

WeCitizens publishes, for each question, a webpage, accessible by its search engine, where you can find all the available information concerning the question. In particular a statistic on the positions of the political actors. This concerns issues that fall within the competence of at least one parliament.
 

5. Virtual vote in parliament (operational service soon)

In this page of explanation will appear the result of a virtual vote of each parliament concerned: if the question was submitted today to vote in the parliament, what would be the result. The calculation is based on the parties’ responses, published in the Political Directory.
 

6. Publication of the recommendation

WeCitizens publishes the list of voting recommendations produced using its tools. In order to respect the impartiality of WeCitizens, this publication is only possible if a sufficient number of customers (in principle, ten) have used the Premium service.
 

Gold Offer: € 10,000

In addition to the “Premium” services, this package includes:

1. Parliamentary votes

WeCitizens examines whether the issues have been the subject of parliamentary votes in the last four years and transcribes the results. This makes it possible to compare the answers (pre-electoral) with the political acts (when they are available).
 

2. Opinions of other influential people

WeCitizens screens the press to identify influential people who have spoken out on the subject (for or against): university professors, thinktank experts, editorial writers, etc. These people are added to the Policy Directory.
 

3. Article

WeCitizens publishes, in its newsletter, a neutral article with the arguments for and against. The article also analyzes the responses gathered from political actors.
 

Contact

Jean-Paul Pinon, Pinon@WeCitizens.be, 0497 527751.
 

The above offer is expressed excluding VAT, and is subject to change. The applicable prices are those published on the website of WeCitizens the day of the written order.
Last updated: 13/3/2018