Michael Dorsey has parlayed his talents for coding and consolidation into a one-stop shop for voters. Dorsey recently launched the website electionguidebc.ca to give residents across B.C. a clearer picture of those looking to represent them in the May 9 provincial election.
Created alongside a team of six volunteers from across Metro Vancouver, including West End resident Cheryl McEachern, Dorsey’s site is a database that asks candidates the same questions around who they are, what they represent and their educational and personal backgrounds.
Dorsey’s hope for the site is two-fold: educate the electorate and boost voter turnout.
“The idea started from my own frustration of trying to find information about the different candidates in a timely, centralized manner,” he said. “My thinking was to start a website where at least people can start to find out about the candidates and platforms, and from there you can go out and do more in-depth research.”
As of the April 14, Dorsey had received responses from more than 60 candidates from all political parties in the province, including many in Vancouver.
The questions asked are more personal in nature, so as to avoid candidates deferring to party spokespeople for specific, uniform answers on platforms. Instead, would-be MLAs are asked to provide info around their place of birth, professional and educational history and their accomplishments in life. More general questions are asked around why the candidate is running and why a voter should entrust them with their vote. Candidates must also identify one key issue in their riding and all answers are capped at a specific word count.
“I want to keep this short and simple so it’s like a comparison of apples to apples,” Dorsey said. “This gives people a starting point that allows them to move forward, dig in more and do more research.” Dorsey maintains that he and his volunteers are doing this from a non-partisan approach. Currently on leave from his job in the IT world, Dorsey is flanked by those in the fields of communications, analytics, teaching and environmental consulting. That team was rounded out in February and the website went live in March.
What was slow going at first, has picked up significant uptick — 20 questionnaires in three days — since the writ was dropped and campaign season officially began on April 11.
“I get the sense that people may not know a lot about their individual candidates, but they know a lot about their parties,” Dorsey said. “These are the people they will end sending to Victoria and these are the people who will be representing them so they should be familiar with who they are.”
Dorsey’s site is online at electionguidebc.ca.
