Methodology

Our methodology

Neutrality isn't a disclaimer at WiseVote — it's built into how data is collected, structured, reviewed and shown.

1. What counts as a source

Every policy, claim and candidate statement must link to a stored source with structured metadata:

title, publisher, URL, publication date and retrieval date
election, jurisdiction, party and candidate (where relevant)
policy area and document type
whether it is a primary source or secondary analysis

We prioritise primary sources: the Victorian Electoral Commission, official party policy documents, official candidate websites, the Parliament of Victoria, Victorian Budget papers, government departments, the Parliamentary Budget Office (Victoria), the Victorian Auditor-General and legislation. Independent analysis may be included but is always labelled separately.

Where a summary was compiled by automated research and has not yet been checked by an editor, it is marked “Pending review”. Each excerpt shown as a source passage is copied from the page as it appeared on the retrieval date.

2. Three kinds of content, always separated

Party says

What a party or candidate says about its own policy, attributed and reported — never endorsed.

Independent evidence

Official records and third-party analysis, such as costings, statistics and research.

WiseVote explanation

WiseVote's neutral plain-language context (labelled “Vota explanation” in Ask Vota answers). It explains; it never evaluates who is right.

3. The same structure for every party

Each comparable policy is described with the same fields: what is promised, how it would work, who may be affected, announced cost, funding mechanism, timeline, the party's rationale, independent analysis, uncertainties and primary sources. Parties appear in alphabetical order by full name. Where we can't verify a position, we show a gap — we never fill it in.

WiseVote does not use star ratings, quality scores, “winner” labels or overall rankings.

4. When sources disagree

We show each view side by side with its citation, rather than silently choosing one interpretation. Commissioned or partisan analysis is labelled as such.

5. How Ask Vota works

Vota, our AI assistant, answers by retrieving passages from WiseVote's reviewed source library — not from a model's general memory.
Every statement must cite a retrieved passage. Uncited statements are removed automatically before you see them.
Generated text is checked for endorsement language; anything that reads as a recommendation is removed.
If the evidence is thin, Vota says: “We couldn't find enough reliable information to answer this confidently.”
Requests to choose a party, rank candidates or fill in a ballot are declined.

6. How Compare summarises differences

The “Key differences” line on each topic is generated by a fixed, published rule from the documented stances shown below it: it groups parties that support, oppose, partly support, or have no documented position. It never weighs which position is better. WiseVote does not ask about your views and does no profiling.

7. Editorial review

Content moves through five states: Draft → AI extracted → Human reviewed → Published → Outdated.

AI-extracted content cannot be published without human review — this is enforced in the system, not just in policy. Every edit is recorded in the policy's “What changed” history.

8. Corrections

Anyone can report an error from any policy, source, candidate or answer. Reports are reviewed by an editor, and corrections are logged publicly.

9. Independence and funding

WiseVote does not accept political advertising, and no payment can change what appears in a comparison. WiseVote is not the Victorian Electoral Commission and is not affiliated with any party, candidate or government.