Forums → WEPR → A new way of voting

So this thought came to me after reading 09philj's post regarding the UK elections. In that post, there's a link where you can answer question regarding your feeling on certain topics and how important they are to you. At the end, it gives you which political partie(s) most line up with your preferences.

And this got me thinking.

What if this sort of survey/poll/thingy was just the way elections were held? You went to the polling booth, filled in your preferences for certain issues and how important they are for you, and then your vote is cast based on those answers. So you're not voting based on a person or a party - you're voting based on your individual preferences.

So my question is: would this sort of system of voting be an improvement? I do see some upsides to this: uninformed people could still vote for someone who would represent their interests, political parties would have to become more transparent to meet the demands of this system, and this would likely have a huge positive impact on how campaigns are run in general.

The big downside I see, though, is the worry that you're not really voting any more. You're answering questions and then a vote is cast on your behalf. Plus this system basically amounts to telling people: "Look, you're too stupid to know who to vote for, so here's a quiz to help!"

At any rate, this was just a passing thought. It's certainly not a well-developed or well-argued for position. I don't even know if it would work in the first place. Just wondering what you think about a change like this.