The Electoral Effects of Voting Advice Applications

Abstract

Half a century ago most voters were aligned to political parties on the basis of social characteristics, such as social class or religious affiliation. In elections, making a choice was easy, as electoral support matched the cleavage structure. Today the situation is rather different. Partisan attachments have weakened and many voters hesitate until the end of the campaign. Against this background, combined with the rise of the internet, it is no surprise that increasing numbers of voters consult a Voting Advice Application (VAA), such as smartvote in Switzerland or StemWijzer in the Netherlands. Especially in multi-party systems, where the choice is presumably most difficult, these online tools have attracted many users. The estimates of their impact on vote choice vary, ranging between virtually zero to about half of the undecided electorate. In this panel we seek to increase our understanding of the electoral effects of VAAs. We welcome any type of paper dealing with the effects of VAA usage on electoral turnout and party or candidate choice. In particular, we encourage papers that explain variation in the size of VAA effects between different groups of voters (micro-level) and between different electoral contexts (macro-level). Besides survey-based analyses, experimental studies are also welcome.

Title	Details
Swing Voting due to Smartvote Use? Evidence from the 2011 Swiss Federal Elections	View Paper Details
VAAs as Stimuli for Mobilisation and Party Switching: A Panel Study	View Paper Details
The Perceived Effects of KiesKompas in the Dutch 2012 Elections	View Paper Details
Assessing the Electoral Impact of VAAs: A Field Experiment	View Paper Details
The (Non?)Importance of Voting Advice Applications	View Paper Details