Vote Compass: Majority of voters back gay marriage

Updated 32 minutes ago

A majority of Australians support gay marriage but clear divisions emerge along ideological lines, according to data from the ABC’s Vote Compass policy tool.

Fifty-two per cent of respondents do not believe marriage should only be between a man and a woman, compared to 36 per cent who do. Twelve per cent selected ‘neutral’.

Among people who identify themselves as right-leaning politically, 72 per cent think marriage should only be between a man and a woman. For the left-leaning, 78 per cent disagree with that proposition.

Women and single voters are more likely to support gay marriage than men and people who are married.

Vote Compass asked for views on the statement: Marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Euthanasia

In other Vote Compass figures out today, 75 per cent of respondents backed legalising voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill.

Vote Compass asked for views on the statement: Terminally ill patients should be able to legally end their own lives with medical assistance.

Abortion

A strong majority of Australians want abortion services to remain at least as accessible as they currently are in Australia, the data suggests.

Vote Compass asked: How accessible should abortion services be in Australia?

FAQ

What is this?

When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called the federal election for September 7, the ABC immediately launched Vote Compass.

Since then, we have received more than 900,000 responses, as people used the tool to see how their views compare to the parties’ policies.

Between now and election day, the ABC will reveal weighted data gathered using the application.

This report explores how people responded to questions on gay marriage, euthanasia and abortion.

The data has been weighted by gender, age, education, enrolment as a student, religion, marital status, industry and state using the latest population estimates to be a true representation of opinion at the time of the field, resulting in an effective sample size of 422,403 respondents.

Vote Compass is not a random sample. Why are the results being represented as though it is a poll?

Vote Compass is not a poll. It is primarily and fundamentally an educational tool intended to promote electoral literacy and stimulate public engagement in the policy aspect of election campaigns.

That said, respondents’ views as expressed through Vote Compass can add a meaningful dimension to our understanding of public attitudes and an innovative new medium for self-expression. Ensuring that the public has a decipherable voice in the affairs of government is a critical function of a robust democracy.

Online surveys are inherently prone to selection bias but statisticians have long been able to correct for this (given the availability of certain variables) by drawing on population estimates such as Census micro-data.

We apply sophisticated weighting techniques to the data to control for the selection effects of the sample, thus enabling us to make statistical inferences about the Australian population with a high degree of confidence.

The Vote Compass data sample was weighted on the basis of: gender; age; education; students; religion; marital status.

How can you stop people from trying to game the system?

There are multiple safeguards in place to ensure the authenticity of each record in the dataset.

Vote Compass does not make its protocols in this regard public so as not to aid those that might attempt to exploit the system, but among standard safeguards such as IP address logging and cookie tracking, it also uses time codes and a series of other measures to prevent users from gaming the system.

Want to know more?

• Full Vote Compass FAQ
• How it works
• About Vote Compass

Try it yourself

• Find out where you stand with Vote Compass

Topics: federal-elections, federal-government, sexuality, marriage, abortion, euthanasia, australia

First posted 3 hours 1 minute ago