Mobilizing Effects of Voting Advice Applications at Local Elections. A Review of the German Lokal-o-Mat

In the past years, decreasing voter turnout is a common problem in almost all European countries. This problem is mostly discussed for elections held on the national level (e.g. National or European parliament elections) – but the development of this problem has been more dramatic for local elections. In Germany, only every second voter goes to the polls at local elections for Mayor or City Council. Therefore mobilizing (internet) tools could be useful at the local level to increase turnout. This paper focusses on a specific tool – the lokal-o-mat – that was implemented for the local elections in Düsseldorf, Germany in 2014 for the first time. We introduce this new Voting Advice Application and present possible lokal-o-mat mobilizing effects, especially for young voters at the 2014 Düsseldorf election using log files and exit surveys. Our results show that mainly young voters can get a first contact to politics and build up their political preference with tools such as the lokal-o-mat.