Data collected from WhichCandidate.ie suggests around a third of respondents change their candidate preference after taking the quiz.

Co-founder of the WhichCandidate quiz Dr Rory Costello told Newstalk Breakfast that many voters' views are not aligned with their top candidate.

"We did some research on this after the elections in June, when we had the European Parliament elections,” he said.

“We put a survey on the site asking people who they currently intended to vote for before they did the quiz, and then we asked them again afterwards.

“We did this just in the immediate days before the election, and what we found actually was around a third of respondents – and there was over 20,000 respondents on this – a third of them actually changed their first preference after doing the quiz.

"That rose then to over half for people who got a result that was very poorly aligned with their initial preference.

“So, there is evidence that it does influence how people vote.”

Members of the public at a polling station in Dublin to cast their votes, 7-6-24. Image: Sasko Lazarov / © RollingNews.ie

Mr Costello said that the quiz does not suggest who a person should vote for.

“All we're telling you is how many questions did you agree with the candidate on and how many did you disagree with them on – it's nothing fancy and complicated,” he said.

“We're trying to make it as transparent as possible – and another thing is, if you get to the results page on WhichCandidate, we're not saying this is who you should vote for.

“What we're saying is that here is who you're aligned with on these issues, now make up your mind.”

Other factors

Mr Costello explained that while the results show which candidates' policies a person most agrees with, it does not take into account other factors.

“There are obviously other factors to take on board when deciding how to vote,” he said.

“Policy alignment is one of them, but there are other things like track record that we don't capture."

Mr Costello encouraged voters to think broadly when making their decision.