Questão Pública: First Voting Advice Application in Latin America

Questão Pública was a Voting Advice Application website set up for the 2010 Senate elections in Brazil. Promoted by a consortium of Brazilian and international NGOs as well as universities, Questão Pública was not only a research but also a political initiative. The consortium understood Questão Pública as a complementary tool to reinforce transparency and accountability during an election campaign. The paper presents a description of this experience, of candidate and user response as well as a discussion of the main features of the Voting Advice Application. We furthermore report on technical aspects, the questionnaire, and the diffusion activities the consortium undertook to convince candidates to participate as well as to attract users.