Online Presidential Candidate Selector Quizzes

The 2008 United States general election is drawing closer and soon a new President will be voted into office. In these final months, citizens may wish to clarify the remaining Presidential candidates' positions on values and issues. Three Presidential selector tools are available to the web-surfing voter to aid him in casting his vote in the Presidential election.

WQAD.com's Select-A-Candidate Quiz

WQAD is a Moline, Illinois, radio station which put their quiz online in July 2007. On their website, they state that their Presidential selector tool is based upon the Minnesota Public Radio quiz. The WQAD Presidential candidate selector tool was promoted on Howard Stern's radio program and on various online blogs.

I took the WQAD Presidential candidate selector quiz on April 17, 2008. At that time, the quiz contained fourteen questions. I had already taken the Minnesota Public Radio quiz and recognized the similar format. The WQAD quiz seemed to be worded in simpler terms than the MPR quiz. Many questions required a 'yes' or 'no' or an 'oppose' or 'favor' answer. Besides selecting the answer that matched my own position, I was asked to rate how important each issue was to me by clicking one of four bubbles from 'not important' to 'very important'.

I found the results from this Presidential candidate selector tool were slightly different than the results I received from the MPR quiz. The difference may have come from the slight variation in the wording of the questions.

My results showed the candidate with the closest match to my answers ranking first and the others ranking after him or her in descending order. Along with the name and photo were two columns, one listing the issues in which the candidate and I agreed and the other listing the issues in which we disagreed.