Sick of Scorecards? We’ll we’ve got one more for you! We’ve scored the 2023 Aotearoa New Zealand General Election scorecards
The good old election scorecard. It can be such a powerful tool for advocates and social organisations to help their communities see which parties and policies have them in mind. We saw a bunch of scorecards shared across the internet this General Election, some good and some less so.
At For Purpose, we have designed a number of scorecards over the years. We’ve dug deep and pulled together criteria that make a good scorecard. Now that scores are in, the results have been tallied, it’s time to score the scorecards.
Here are some things that make an effective scorecard
Being accessible by having different versions of the scorecard for different media
A comprehensive scorecard will work well on your website and in print, but it is too detailed to cut through on social media where people are scrolling through lots of content. Not every version of your scorecard needs to have all the information. Have a simplified, highly visual version of the design to engage people on social media and direct them to your website for the details. Creating different versions of the scorecard for social media, website and print, allows you to design for the different mediums and their audiences.
Use symbols and signifiers to tell a visual story
Make use of signifiers, like political party’s logos and colours. Visuals and symbols help audiences consume information way quicker than words. Be clear about your message intent, for example you might like to communicate ‘they’re very good’ = 🤩, or ‘I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole’ = 🙅🏽♀️. Have a position and use emojis, icons or established rating systems, like A,B,C, to illustrate it. ✊
Push the scorecard convention
Scorecards have been done hundreds of times, because they’re great. The ones our expert Scorecard Panel rated the most memorable are those that push the convention. Renters United totally rethought the scorecard format and created videos of politicians holding up ‘yes’, ’no’ paddles in response to the organisation's policy asks. This is perfect for the social media environment. Salient flipped the scorecard convention on its head and made theirs interactive, inviting people to provide their own scores. This was a tool to help their audience reflect on what is important to them.
Scorecards are a tool that help people learn about policies that will affect them. They will surely be used well into the future. We hope this Scorecard of Scorecards sets an official benchmark for Aotearoa General Election scorecards going forward. Bring on the General Election 2026, for a number of reasons, least of all, more scorecards.
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Thanks to all the scorecard makers out there, especially the ones who’s hard mahi we covered in this blog post:
