ABSTRACT
The Election Compass is a profiling device that compares the personal issue positions of its users with the issue positions of various parties, based on the idea that opinions on many individual issues can be aggregated to a limited number of issue dimensions. Most party profile instruments are based on a ranked list of parties, using a linear notion of distance from the voter, and then computing the distance between the voter and each of the parties for each issue included in the test. In advanced industrial democracies, processes of social mobility and emancipation have left modern citizens with weaker group loyalties and fewer institutional links with party-political organizations, resulting in less traditionally 'partisan' voting behavior. The policy dimensions employed in the Israel Election Compass were, as mentioned before, foreign and security policy, social and economic topics, and the role of the state regarding religion.
