NZVoteCheck and Vote Compass: how the two election quizzes differ

Two separate tools

NZVoteCheck and Vote Compass are not connected. NZVoteCheck is not affiliated with, endorsed by or built by TVNZ or Vox Pop Labs, and neither has any involvement in this site.

Vote Compass is made by Vox Pop Labs, a Canadian social enterprise founded by academics. It has run in New Zealand with TVNZ at every general election since 2014 and is by far the better known of the two.

NZVoteCheck is new for 2026. It is built and run by one New Zealander and is self-funded, with no advertising and no money from any broadcaster, party, donor or lobby group.

Who chooses the questions

Vote Compass asks about 30 questions. Its published method says the research team starts from the parties' platforms and media coverage, tests up to 100 candidate questions on a representative sample of about 1,000 voting-age adults, and keeps the ones that best separate the parties and are easiest to understand.

NZVoteCheck asks 37 questions across six policy areas. They are chosen by its author from what the parties are campaigning on, and more are added as parties announce policy. They were not trialled on a survey sample first. Instead, the balance of the question set is measured every time it changes and the result is published, including where it falls short. You can read how the questions are checked.

How the parties are scored

At Vote Compass, researchers read each party's public statements and place it on every question, with researchers working separately and then comparing results. Each party is then sent the questionnaire, asked to place itself, and can dispute where it has been put. Disagreements that are not resolved go to an advisory board of academics for a final ruling.

NZVoteCheck does not consult the parties. Each position is taken only from what the party has published: a manifesto line, a policy page or a reported campaign announcement. No party is asked where it would like to sit.

Each approach has a cost. Asking the parties can catch mistakes an outsider would miss, but it also gives them a say in how they are presented. Working only from published material removes that influence, but it means an error stays until somebody spots it.

What you can check for yourself

Vote Compass shows each party's position, and the public statements behind it, on your results page once you have finished the quiz.

NZVoteCheck publishes every party position (222 at the time of writing), each with its source and the date it was last checked, on the where every party stands page. You can read every question and every source before you answer anything, or without taking the quiz at all.

Most NZVoteCheck questions also come with a plain-English explainer covering what the policy means, the arguments on both sides and who it affects.

How your result is worked out

The two have a lot in common here. Both ask how strongly you agree or disagree with each statement on a five-point scale, both let you say which issues matter most to you, and both give you a percentage match with each party.

Both also place you on a chart with economic views on one axis and social views on the other, but they build it differently. Vote Compass derives its chart with a statistical model fitted to its trial survey. NZVoteCheck uses fixed axes and applies the same published sum to you and to every party, so the same answers always give the same result and every number can be traced back to a question. The sums are set out on the methodology page.

What happens to your answers

Vote Compass is owned and operated by Vox Pop Labs. It says responses are analysed in aggregate only, that findings are shared through its media partners during the campaign, and that the data is used in academic research afterwards. TVNZ states that 1News does not receive or retain your responses.

NZVoteCheck scores your answers in your browser. When you finish, they are added to an anonymous dataset used to check the quiz is working, unless you untick the sharing box shown before your results. Either way, no name, email or IP address is stored.

Where Vote Compass is stronger

It is built by a team of social scientists with input from New Zealand political scientists. Its questions are tested on a representative sample before launch. Every party gets the chance to challenge how it has been placed. And it has a long record, here and overseas. If those things matter most to you, it is a good tool.

Where NZVoteCheck is different

Everything is open before you start. No party has any input. There is no broadcaster or commercial partner behind it. It asks more questions, including policy announced late in the campaign, and it publishes its own shortcomings.

It is also newer, built by one person and not a research team, and has not been tested on a survey sample. The methodology page sets out the known limits in full.

Which should you use?

There is no need to pick one. They ask different questions and score the parties in different ways, so taking both is a useful check. If they agree, you can be more confident in the result. If they disagree, the questions where they differ are worth a closer look.

Whichever you use, a quiz only measures how closely your views match published policy. It cannot weigh leadership, trust or how a party has behaved in government, and it cannot tell you who will end up governing with whom.

Details about Vote Compass on this page come from its published methodology (version 2026.1, June 2026) and the 2026 New Zealand edition as it stood on 5 October 2026.