PRESS RELEASE: Millions of Australian voters will soon rely on the social capital created by the positive or negative voter ratings of State and Federal Politicians, as posted on www.PoliScore.com.au

BARTON ACT – 23 JANUARY 2022. Voters will soon rely on PoliScore reviews and other user-submitted content to help select the politicians that will benefit from their vote at the next election. Every State/Territory and Federal politician will have a ‘PoliScore’ – a percentage rating based on the ratings from the Australian public to ensure year-round accountability, and NOT just at election time.

Poliscore is a purpose-built safe social media platform that promotes a better representative democracy, to the mutual benefit of the voting public and our political representatives. A platform specifically designed for members of the public to post ratings on how well, or how badly, their politicians are performing.

“In a world of mixed messages, multiple options, and overwhelming data, getting online reviews is a great way to differentiate serving politicians from electoral candidates and counterparts on the other side of the political divide. Reviews not only have the power to influence voter decisions but can also strengthen a Political Party’s credibility. Reviews have the power to gain voter trust, and they encourage people to become more involved in politics. Voter interaction ultimately leads to an improved democracy for all Australians,” Poliscore Founder and CEO Steve Allen said.

PoliScore has strict guidelines to ensure everyone can benefit in a safe, transparent, and authentic way, to ensure appropriate engagement with a politicians’ electorate.

The importance of voter reviews in today’s political success equation can be boiled down to one startling statistic. According to a recent survey, approximately 4 in every 5 voters trust online reviews as much as they do recommendations from their friends and family members. This means that word of mouth — the most powerful form of both positive and negative influence on voting decisions — has gone virtual. And while a decade or two ago a happy or disgruntled constituent might have told 1, 3, 5, or 10 friends, co-workers, family members, etc. About their positive or negative experience with a politician, today, they can literally tell the world! What’s more, voter reviews – whether positive or negative – tend to encourage more reviews. That means if a politician is successfully keeping your voters happy, on some level they’ll do a lot of work to help attract undecided voters while continuing to their support.

A positive reputation is one of the most powerful assets a politician has, and those high rating reviews can help influence more people to vote in their favor. Will all reviews be positive? No, they won’t, but those negative reviews will provide politicians a wonderful opportunity to have a better understanding of community sentiment.

Our mission is to become a universal symbol of trust, and we do this by tapping into people’s desire to share experiences and make things better for voters. We’re a place to share, discover, connect with, and influence our politicians. For politicians, we’re a platform of progress. A way to impress, improve and innovate by simply engaging and collaborating with voters.

We understand that politicians might be skeptical initially about the PoliScore dialog with the electorate, as most communication between politicians and voters has been, to date, one way – carefully crafted spin to ensure the Politicians’ future. All of this means PoliScore is more than just a rating. The Poliscore rating signifies to Australia’s population that the politician has nothing to hide, they value the opinions of their electorate and share a common goal to improve the lives of their electorate and more generally, life in Australia, as Australians.

We’ve talked about PoliScore’s mission, to be a universal symbol of trust in political opinion in Australia, but how does this help Politicians, and advance the lives of Australians? Well, it unites key pieces of a puzzle. We help politicians become better representatives for their voters and more representative of the views of their voting public. This means genuine voter feedback with insights to learn from and to improve. It’s the ability to see their political performance from your voter’s viewpoint. By listening to this feedback and acting on it, you can improve, which leads to improved respect, loyalty, and popularity.

Poliscore has a robust system, with 100% human oversight to deal with fake and malicious reviews, and we don’t rely on artificial intelligence or computer algorithms.
All voters are verified before they are approved to post on PoliScore.

We employ strict safety measures & human oversight of all posted content, following recommendations from the ACCC and the E-safety Commissioner, to ensure PoliScore is a safe environment for Politicians, Candidates, and Voters. These safeguards are expensive, and time-consuming to maintain for our team, but essential.
The platform is free for voters. For politicians to access the full suite of features, they will be required to pay an annual subscription. Candidates for election will be asked to pay a low one-off fee to showcase their candidacy to voters which want change.

A PoliScore review involves two parts. In line with the ACCC recommendations, the number of reviews from the basis of an aggregated percentage rating may be relevant to the weight which a voter gives to that aggregated rating. As such the percentage ratings on Poliscore are displayed with the number of reviews that contribute to that rating. Also, it’s important to note that all politicians will start at a neutral 50% rating.

When voters are posting a review of a politician, it is not as simple as clicking a set of stars. The percentage rating is directly linked to how voters rate that politician on 10 specific questions. On each of these ten questions, they are asked to rate the politician between 1 and 10. The final rating that they post will be the sum of their ratings for all ten questions. There is also a section where voters can post a more general comment regarding their thoughts of that politician. To respond to a review your politician accounts must be active and verified via their parliamentary email. A good review (or, even better, many good reviews!) On PoliScore will act as a stamp of approval for a politician’s service and voter satisfaction, telling undecided voters who is the best choice to represent them.

Just how much of an influence will reviews have on the voter? In the business world, a study from Podium published in The Drum found that 93% of customers say online reviews impact their purchasing decision, making it crucial for a company to engage with Online review platforms. Poliscore aims to be just as influential when voters Choose their desired candidate before casting their vote at election time. But Poliscore goes further to finally give independent and minor party candidates a voice and a platform to share their policies to the electorate, without the need for a massive party fuelled budget. Many in the media are suggesting that 2022 will see more voters favoring independent and minor party candidates, and PoliScore offers them the perfect platform to showcase their credentials and policies.

PoliScore, being first to the market, aims to be THE online review platform of politicians in Australia. After 5 years of painstaking development, our platform is built on openness and collaboration. Poliscore.com.au is open to all voters, and we promise to be always independent and non-partisan.

FUTURE PLANS – as soon as we establish the platform in Australia, we will expand our capability to include New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

“Behind every review is an experience that matters”

Why Started??
Anger at Australia’s political class, economic dissatisfaction, and anxiety about rapid social changes have caused political upheaval in regions around the world, and in Australia, in recent years. Too often Australians hear politicians sprouting “we are all in this together,” or “the law is the law, and it applies to all.” However, most of us understand that when considering Australia’s political class of entitlement, the reality is “you (not us) are all in this together” and “the law is the law, and it applies to all (except if you are a politician).”
Politicians should be held accountable just like every other working Australian. Many might start with the goal of serving the public interest, but it seems self-interest soon takes over. I believe that Australians need to vote for the individual, rather than just the party. Australia needs to defend freedom of speech, yes with the necessary caveats, but one of those caveats should never include open communication between voters and their political representatives. Politicians need to stop with the carefully crafted spin and start a meaningful dialogue with the silent majority – hard working Australians.
Steve Allen served many years in the Australian Federal Police before joining the corporate world. Later he established several successful businesses – the last of which was sold late last year. Since then, he has been finetuning the PoliScore platform and hiring Poliscore’s launch team.

Visit www.poliscore.com.au