VoteWise

Vote for the policy, not the tribe.

Northern Ireland has 90 MLAs making decisions on housing, health, and education — but most people vote based on identity, not policy. VoteWise breaks that pattern. Take a 90-second quiz, get a data-driven alignment score against every party's actual Assembly voting record, and find out who really represents you.

Built at HackBelfast 2026.

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Live Demo

	URL
Frontend	https://hack-belfast.vercel.app
Backend API	https://hackbelfast-production.up.railway.app

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Features

• Policy quiz — 10 questions across housing, health, education, climate, equality, economy, welfare, integration, and legacy. Five-point Likert scale, auto-advances on selection.
• Alignment engine — scores your answers against each party's revealed voting record (not manifesto rhetoric). Ranks all 7 NI parties and surfaces your top 6 MLA matches.
• Party scorecards — full promise tracker for all 7 parties. Every commitment marked kept, in progress, or broken, with evidence and source links.
• MLA profiles — voting record, declared interests, donations, party-line voting percentage, and constituency for 14 MLAs across all 7 parties.
• Blockchain verification — every MLA profile is SHA-256 fingerprinted and stamped on Solana devnet. The Verify Now button recomputes the hash in your browser and compares it to the on-chain record. Silent edits are publicly detectable.
• Audio briefings — ElevenLabs-generated 90-second personalised briefing plays automatically on your results page.

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript 5, Tailwind 4
Backend	FastAPI, Motor (async MongoDB)
Database	MongoDB Atlas (Ireland region)
Blockchain	Solana devnet — Memo program
Audio	ElevenLabs
Deploy	Vercel (frontend), Railway (backend)

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Project Structure

/
├── frontend/               # Next.js app (Vercel)
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── page.tsx        # Homepage redirect
│   │   ├── quiz/           # Quiz flow
│   │   ├── results/        # Results + bar chart + audio
│   │   ├── party/[id]/     # Party scorecard
│   │   ├── mla/[id]/       # MLA profile (4 tabs)
│   │   └── components/
│   │       ├── ChainPanel.tsx    # Solana verification UI
│   │       └── VerifiedBadge.tsx # Green verified badge
│   └── public/
│       ├── html/index.html # Animated homepage
│       ├── images/         # Party logos + Stormont photo
│       └── audio/          # ElevenLabs result briefings
│
└── backend/                # FastAPI app (Railway)
    ├── main.py             # All API endpoints
    ├── routers/
    │   └── quiz_router.py  # /quiz/questions + /quiz/score
    ├── services/
    │   ├── alignment_service.py  # Scoring engine
    │   └── solana_service.py     # Chain stamping
    ├── seed/
    │   ├── seed_real_parties.py  # 7 NI parties
    │   ├── seed_real_mlas.py     # 14 MLAs
    │   └── run_chain_verify_all.py
    └── data/
        ├── quiz_questions.json   # 10 questions
        └── party_positions.json  # Party stances per axis

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Quickstart

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• Python 3.11+
• MongoDB Atlas cluster
• Railway account (or any server for FastAPI)

Backend

cd backend
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Create .env
echo "MONGODB_URI=your_atlas_connection_string" > .env
echo "SOLANA_PRIVATE_KEY=your_devnet_key" >> .env

# Seed the database
python -m backend.seed.seed_real_parties
python -m backend.seed.seed_real_mlas

# Run
uvicorn main:app --reload

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install

# Create .env.local
echo "NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:8000" > .env.local

npm run dev
# → http://localhost:3000

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API Reference

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/health	Health check
GET	/parties	All 7 parties
GET	/party/{id}	Single party with full scorecard
GET	/party/{id}/mlas	MLAs for a party
GET	/mla/{id}	Full MLA profile
GET	/quiz/questions	10 quiz questions
POST	/quiz/score	Score answers, return alignment
GET	/politician/{id}/chain	Chain verification record
POST	/chain/verify/{id}	Stamp profile on Solana

Quiz score request

{
  "answers": [
    { "id": "q1", "value": 2 },
    { "id": "q2", "value": -1 }
  ]
}

Quiz score response

{
  "party_alignment": [
    { "party_id": "party_alliance", "name": "Alliance Party", "alignment_pct": 88, "color": "#F6CB2F" }
  ],
  "top_match": "party_alliance",
  "mla_alignment": [
    { "mla_id": "mla_naomi_long", "name": "Naomi Long", "alignment_pct": 91 }
  ]
}

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Alignment Scoring

For each policy axis, distance = |user_answer − party_position|. Max distance per axis = 4. Across all 10 axes, max total = 40.

alignment % = 100 − (total_distance / 40 × 100)

MLA scores use their individual vote record per axis, falling back to their party's position for any axis without a recorded vote.

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Blockchain Verification

1. MLA profile data is serialised to canonical JSON (sorted keys, no spaces)
2. SHA-256 hash computed server-side in Python
3. Hash written to Solana devnet via the Memo program
4. chain_state record stored in MongoDB with hash and tx signature

Verify Now recomputes the hash client-side using the Web Crypto API and diffs it against the stored hash. No trust in VoteWise's servers required. If the database is altered after stamping, verification fails publicly.

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The Seven Parties

Party	Short	Colour	Seats (2022)
Alliance Party	Alliance	#F6CB2F	17
Democratic Unionist Party	DUP	#D4213D	25
Sinn Féin	SF	#326760	27
Ulster Unionist Party	UUP	#48A5DD	9
SDLP	SDLP	#2E9A41	12
People Before Profit	PBP	#C0392B	1
Traditional Unionist Voice	TUV	#4A7AB5	1

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Team

Built in 8 hours at HackBelfast 2026.

• Rehan — backend, data seeding, MLA profiles, API
• Ryan — quiz logic, alignment engine, results page, ElevenLabs audio
• Conor — frontend design, homepage, demo recording
• Das — Solana integration, blockchain verification

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Licence

MIT