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Status: activeType: 🏛️ civic techCountry: Australia Website: www.buildaballot.org.au
Status active
Type 🏛️ civic tech
Country Australia
Website www.buildaballot.org.au
Contact tool@buildaballot.org.au
Concepts Representative Democracy E Government
Last activity 2026-06-07 manual
was definitely active last year, as noted by a dod member

Build a Ballot

Build a Ballot is a voter advice application (VAA) built and maintained by Project Planet Inc., an Australian charity focused on climate change. The tool launches a few weeks before each state and federal election, presenting voters with a short series of policy questions and calculating a "match score" with candidates and parties in their electorate.

How it works

Users answer questions on major policy issues — housing, energy, healthcare, climate — selected because they consistently rank as top voter concerns and are backed by strong evidence as material issues. Based on responses, the tool generates a ranked match score with candidates in the user's electorate.

Build a Ballot makes no automatic recommendations: the match score is derived entirely from the user's own stated preferences. It includes a transparency centre documenting its methodology.

Significance

Voter advice applications are a form of civic technology that lowers the barrier to informed voting — particularly relevant in Australian elections, where the preferential voting system requires voters to rank all candidates and navigating minor party preferences can be confusing. Build a Ballot has been used across multiple state and federal elections.

See also

Upcoming events

History