The Assistant Professor for Data Science and PhD Researcher assess the potential impact of Germany's Wahl-O-Mat for the upcoming federal election.
Voting advice apps (VAAs) may not change voters' minds as much as they mobilise people to vote, Hertie School researchers write in a guest contribution in Die Zeit, after the German government launched its VAA this week presenting party stances on key issues ahead of the 26 September federal election.
In their recent meta-study of 20 other studies, Simon Munzert, Assistant Professor for Data Science and Public Policy, and Sebastian Ramirez Ruiz, PhD Researcher, found that people who use VAAs change their voting choice before an election 1.5 times more frequently than non-users. In addition, "On average across all studies, ... the likelihood of going to the polls is almost twice as high for users of online voting aids than for non-users," they write in Die Zeit.
The German Federal Agency for Civic Education's “Wahl-o-Mat” allows voters to compare the various parties' platforms. Since its launch in 2002, it has become Germany's most popular digital election decision tool, used over 15 million times in the run-up to the 2017 federal election.
The full article is available here. (In German)
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