Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) under Scrutiny – Assessing their Impact on Elections

Abstract

The Internet has opened up new possibilities for politics in general and for electoral processes in particular. During the 90’s, e-voting was hoped to boost voter turnout and change the way of voting. Yet, the introduction of e-voting still wears on and where it has been implemented, the high expectations have not been met. However, e-democracy is more than just casting the ballot online. In recent years several European countries have experienced a boom of so-called online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), which match on individual level voters’ political values and preferences with those of candidates and parties in the forefront of elections. These new instruments assist voters in their decision-making by easing access to information and reducing the complexity of the process. VAAs have not only proven useful tools for single voters, they also have become very popular among a huge number of voters: during the 2006 electoral campaign in the Netherlands the Stemwijzer provided 4.7 million voting advices, 2007 in Switzerland smartvote was used one million times, and in Germany the Wahl-O-Mat generated 6.7 million voting advices in 2009. Despite this popularity among voters and the clear potential to influence the process of voting, studies on VAAs have so far been rare. However, a few scholars have ventured into this research topic and first evidence of their research indicates that VAAs do have an impact on both voter turnout and electoral choice. This panel offers researchers a platform to discuss and share recent findings on how VAAs impact democratic processes in general. We welcome in particular papers addressing the potential impact on electoral participation, voting decisions, the quality of democratic representation, political campaigns or deliberation. Papers on other aspects of VAAs (e.g. on how they have to be designed in order to produce accurate voting advices, or on the quality standards VAAs should meet) are also welcomed.

Title	Details
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Most Suitable of Them All?:The Effects of Online Voting Advice Application Use on Citizens’ Electoral Behaviour	View Paper Details
Role of Self Selection in Estimating the Effects of Voting Advice Applications: Empirical Evidence on the Basis of Swiss Smartvote Data	View Paper Details
Smartvote in Luxembourg: Usage and Impact of a New Electoral Tool	View Paper Details
Tackling Self-Selection into Treatment and Self-Selection into the Sample Biases in VAA Research	View Paper Details
The Design Effects of Voting Advice Applications: Comparing Methods of Calculating Results	View Paper Details
The Impact of Voting Advice Applications on Electoral Behaviour – The case of the 2009 German Federal Election	View Paper Details