Voting advice applications and party choice: evidence from smartvote users in Switzerland

Abstract

Online voting advice applications (VAAs) have become popular across Europe with millions of voters using them during electoral campaigns. Despite their popularity, little is known about their impact on their users' electoral choices. Based on survey data from voters using the Swiss VAA smartvote, we present findings on the direct impact on the actual votes of VAA users and whether the voting recommendations led them to adapt their previous vote choices. Our findings suggest that there is a tendency toward swing voting among smartvote users, most prominently among younger voters. Moreover, we find that smartvote users who were very surprised by the outcome of their voting recommendations were also more inclined to change their party choices. Furthermore, we examine the directional change of the initial voting preferences of those voters who stated that the tool had influenced their voting decisions. Our findings are valid only for a self-selected sample of smartvote users; thus, we discuss necessary steps for improvement in future VAA research.

VAAs as sources of volatility and fragmentation: self-selection effects and genuine effects

“…Other studies showed already the beneficial effects of VAAs for voter knowledge (Schultze 2014;Kamoen et al 2015) and a higher turnout (Fivaz and Nadig 2010;Ladner and Pianzola 2010;Ladner, Fivaz, and Pianzola 2012;Marschall and Schultze 2012). When the mediated moderator model of this study is applied to turnout in Dutch municipalities, results show that VAA effects on turnout are also contingent on socio-economic and demographic factors.…”

“…With a few exceptions (Walgrave, Van Aelst, and Nuytemans 2008;Enyedi 2015) most studies found such an effect, regardless whether they were based on experiments, surveys among VAA users, or representative panel surveys including both users and nonusers of VAAs (Kleinnijenhuis et al 2007;Ladner, Fivaz, and Pianzola 2012;Marschall and Schultze 2012;Pianzola et al 2012;Vassil 2012;Alvarez et al 2014;Pianzola 2014aPianzola , 2014bWall, Krouwel, and Vitiello 2014). Some studies showed that VAA effects are partly but not fully endogenous.…”

The Impact of Voting Advice Applications on Electoral Preferences: A Field Experiment in the 2014 Quebec Election

“…These studies produced varying results, further raising possible concerns about the reliability of self‐reports. The range of users who felt the VAA had influenced their decision varied from 6 percent of the sample (Garzia & Marschall, ) to a high of 67 percent (Ladner, Fivaz, & Pianzola, ), whereas in other research, up to 90 percent of users denied that the VAA had any effect on their vote (Walgrave et al, ). Other studies use panel data and national election surveys, to compare voters’ electoral preferences (before using the VAA) to their electoral choice after the election (Enyedi, ; Walgrave et al, ; Wall et al, ).…”

Voting Advice Applications and electoral turnout

“…One potential effect concerns the choice of a particular party or candidate: if voters consult such a website they may remember the outcome of the test and vote accordingly (Ladner et al, 2012;Wall et al, 2012). Another type of effect concerns the question whether citizens vote at all.…”

“…In other areas of research about public opinion it has been shown that some groups are more open to persuasion than others (Zaller, 1992). In the field of VAA research, too, it has been shown that certain types of citizens are more likely to follow the advice of VAAs than others (Ladner et al, 2012;Wall et al, 2012). More specifically, on the basis of previous research we may expect these effects to be largest among younger voters and those with low levels of political interest, since these voters are more often undecided.…”