Glossary
Plain-English meanings for the words how2vote uses. If a term on the site is unfamiliar, look it up here.
- Above the line and below the line
- The two ways to fill in a Senate ballot paper. Above the line, you number the parties or groups. Below the line, you number individual candidates. You choose one way or the other.
- Aggregate counts
- Group totals only — for example, “about 300 people agreed” — with nothing kept about any one person. how2vote's optional research stores aggregate counts, never individual records.
- Agreement figure
- A number from 0 to 100, published by They Vote For You, for how often a member of parliament has voted the way a proposition describes. how2vote averages these to score each party.
- Alignment (match)
- How closely your answers line up with a party's recorded votes, shown as a percentage. It is background information, not a recommendation — how2vote never tells you who to put first.
- Checksum
- A short code worked out from a file. If even one character of the file changes, the code changes too, so it shows whether the data has been altered.
- Data vintage
- The date the voting data was captured. It tells you how up to date a comparison is.
- De-identified
- Held in a way that is not tied to you as a person. how2vote's research is de-identified: it keeps group totals, not a record about any individual.
- Division
- A formal, recorded vote in parliament, where members are counted for and against. They Vote For You publishes these votes, and how2vote's scores are built from them.
- Estimand
- The exact thing a piece of research sets out to measure, decided and written down before any data is collected.
- Hansard
- The official written record of what is said and done in parliament.
- How-to-vote plan
- The order you choose to number candidates on your ballot. You build your own; how2vote never chooses it for you, and it is not an official ballot paper.
- Preference
- A number you write next to a candidate to show the order you want them counted — 1 for your first choice, 2 for your next, and so on.
- Proposition
- A specific policy statement that parliament has actually voted on. how2vote's questions are propositions, so every answer maps to a real vote.
- They Vote For You
- A free public website, run by the OpenAustralia Foundation, that records how members of parliament have voted. It is how2vote's source for voting records.