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Voting Smarter? The impact of voting advice applications on political behavior
Abstract and Figures
Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) proliferate across Europe and beyond. By matching the political offer with voters’ preferences, these internet appli- cations assist voters in their decisions. However, despite the growing num- ber of VAA users in several European polities, little is still known about the profile of a typical VAA user, let alone about the impact of VAA usage on individual level attitudes and behavior. Dominant research in this field of- fers contradictory evidence for it suffers from poor data quality, relies on descriptive analysis and fails to tap causality. To remedy these problems this thesis systematically investigates the patterns of VAA usage and its impact on voting preferences, vote choice and electoral turnout. In so doing I em- ploy data from cross sectional election studies, panel surveys and a large N field experiment. First, I demonstrate that VAA usage is more frequent among the young, educated citizens from urban areas. However, addition- ally to these baseline properties, VAA users appear to be considerably more active in political life, they are interested in political issues and they are available to electoral competition. Second, using an experimental research design, I demonstrate that VAAs are more likely to affect the young and the less educated. Findings show that VAAs indeed influence users’ political preferences, vote choice and motivate voters to participate in elections. More specifically, VAAs help young voters to distinguish between political parties and the less educated are likely to change their vote choice as compared to the previously intended one as a consequence of VAA usage. Taken together, the findings confirm theories of political socialization and the life cycle ef- fects by which one’s susceptibility to political information slows down with advancing age. However, the patterns of usage and impact appear to cancel each other out, in that those who most frequently use VAAs are least likely to be affected by their vote advice. Conversely, among those groups where the impact appears to be greatest, the likelihood of VAA usage is lowest. By implication, while the VAA effects can be found on an individual level, the mechanism by which the influence is exercised prevents large changes at the aggregate level. Therefore, much like the boat sailing against the tide covers little distance over ground, VAAs do influence individual level attitudes and behavior, but fail to bring about aggregate change.
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... As elsewhere in the political science literature, concerns about omitted variable bias in observational research have motivated a turn to experimental designs in the VAA literature. Crucially, in stark contrast to observational studies, most existing experimental studies found little evidence for an effect of VAA usage on political knowledge, voting preferences, or electoral turnout (Enyedi, 2016;Mahéo, 2016Mahéo, , 2017Munzert et al., 2020;Pianzola et al., 2019; for notable exceptions see Garzia et al., 2017;Vassil, 2011). The frequent null results in experimental studies have given rise to suggestions that the VAA effects that were reported in the observational literature are owed largely or even entirely to omitted variable bias, and that hopes that VAAs would help to promote informed voting based on policy positions were therefore misplaced (Munzert & Ramirez Ruiz, 2021). ...
... In this study, we consider a total of five frequently suggested sources of individual-level causal heterogeneity: age, education, political interest, whether voters already have a vote intention, and whether issue positions are an important consideration to voters. First, age has been argued to moderate the relationship between VAAs and electoral preferences because younger voters tend to have lower political knowledge and less solidified voting preferences (Pianzola, 2014b;Vassil, 2011). In keeping with existing literature, we therefore expect that VAAs have stronger effects on the voting preferences of younger voters. ...
... Finally, political issues are likely to be the decisive factor for some voters while others lay greater emphasis on other factors, such as the perceived competence of candidates, their gender, or their ethnic identity. Since VAAs provide information on issue congruence, we expect that they influence voters for whom issues are an important consideration more strongly than voters for whom other considerations are more important (Vassil, 2011). ...
Voting advice applications (VAAs) are online tools that provide voters with personalized information on the extent to which their policy views match those of political parties or candidates. These tools have proliferated across advanced democracies in recent years and become integral parts of electoral campaigns, especially in multi-party systems. However, it remains unclear to what extent voters actually make use of VAAs to inform their voting preferences. We present new field-experimental evidence on the short-term effects of VAAs on party preferences from five European countries. We find consistent evidence that exposure to VAA advice leads voters to update their party preferences in line with the information provided. Furthermore, we find partial evidence that VAAs more strongly influence less politically interested and undecided voters. Overall, our results point to the potential value of VAAs as a mechanism to strengthen democratic representation and accountability.
... Despite the wide popularity of VAAs in multiple countries, previous work has revealed important selection effects regarding who uses VAA tools, consistent with inequalities in other forms of online political engagement (Norris 2001;Vaccari 2013). Younger voters who are highly educated, politically interested, and politically knowledgeable are disproportionately more likely to use a VAA (Vassil 2011;Marschall and Schultze 2015), though other difficult-to-observe characteristics such as digital literacy might play a role as well. ...
... To counter these biases, designs have advanced over time, exploiting panel setups (e.g., Walgrave, Van Aelst, and Nuytemans 2008; Andreadis and Wall 2014;Heinsohn et al. 2016) and implementing various forms of selection and matching methods (e.g., Pianzola 2014a; Gemenis 2018). More recently, a set of pioneering studies has adopted an experimental approach to identify VAA effects by randomly assigning VAA use (e.g., Vassil 2011;Enyedi 2016;Mahéo 2016;Pianzola et al. 2019). A limitation of the experimental approach is that these well-designed studies tend to rely on small sample sizes and lack compliance indicators. ...
... Even setting aside the enlarged standard errors due to subgroup analysis, we find little evidence of trends in heterogeneity, with few exceptions: The effect on knowledge of parties' issue positions seems to be concentrated among the 46-60year-old respondents, those with lower levels of formal education, and high levels of civic knowledge. On the one hand, this is partly in line with previous findings by Mahéo (2017), indicating that the VAA can offer important benefits to educationally disadvantaged citizens, albeit they tend to be less likely to use VAAs in the first place (Vassil 2011;Marschall and Schultze 2015). On the other hand, those with already higher levels of civic knowledge benefit most from the tool, limiting VAAs' effectiveness in reducing inequalities. ...
Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), which provide citizens with information on the party that best represents their political preferences, are often cited as evidence of the empowering capabilities of digital tools. Aside from the informational benefits of these voter guides, observational studies have suggested a strong effect on political participation and vote choice. However, existing impact evaluations have been limited by a reliance on convenience samples, lack of random assignment, or both. This raises questions about self-selection and the precise mechanisms underlying how voters learn about politics. Here, we provide evidence from a field experiment with survey outcomes conducted with a sample of over 1,000 German citizens in the 2017 federal election campaign. Using linked panel survey and digital trace data combined with a randomized encouragement to complete a VAA, we assess respondents’ compliance with treatment and observe how the use of this tool affects political behavior, attitudes, media consumption, political knowledge, and even social media activity. Our findings reveal that the overwhelming consensus in favor of positive effects on turnout and vote choice should be treated with caution, as we find no such effects. Rather, the actual virtue of VAAs in a complex online information environment lies in increasing knowledge about parties’ positions on issues—exactly the kind of information these tools were designed to provide.
... The results of these studies were rather mixed, showing a positive effect of VAA usage on electoral turnout in some countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Finland, but not in others like Greece, while in Germany VAA usage was associated with information-seeking activities but not more active engagement with electoral campaigns such as attending party rallies. Another strand, looked at randomized experiments in countries and regions like Estonia (Vassil, 2011), Finland (Christensen et al., 2021), Germany (Munzert et al., 2020), Hungary (Enyedi, 2016), Italy (Garzia et al., 2017b), Japan (Tsutsumi et al., 2018), Northern Ireland (Garry et al., 2019), Quebec (Mahéo, 2016(Mahéo, , 2017, Switzerland (Pianzola et al., 2019;Stadelmann-Steffen et al., 2023), Taiwan (Liao et al., 2020), Turkey (Andı et al., 2023), Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, and Great Britain (Germann et al., 2023). Again, while most studies find evidence of VAA effects on voting behavior and political participation (Garry et al., 2019;Pianzola et al., 2019;Liao et al., 2020;Christensen et al., 2021;Germann et al., 2023;Stadelmann-Steffen et al., 2023), other studies find no meaningful effects (Enyedi, 2016;Tsutsumi et al., 2018;Munzert et al., 2020), or effects that were limited to undecided (or centrist) voters (Vassil, 2011;Mahéo, 2016;Andı et al., 2023). ...
... Another strand, looked at randomized experiments in countries and regions like Estonia (Vassil, 2011), Finland (Christensen et al., 2021), Germany (Munzert et al., 2020), Hungary (Enyedi, 2016), Italy (Garzia et al., 2017b), Japan (Tsutsumi et al., 2018), Northern Ireland (Garry et al., 2019), Quebec (Mahéo, 2016(Mahéo, , 2017, Switzerland (Pianzola et al., 2019;Stadelmann-Steffen et al., 2023), Taiwan (Liao et al., 2020), Turkey (Andı et al., 2023), Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, and Great Britain (Germann et al., 2023). Again, while most studies find evidence of VAA effects on voting behavior and political participation (Garry et al., 2019;Pianzola et al., 2019;Liao et al., 2020;Christensen et al., 2021;Germann et al., 2023;Stadelmann-Steffen et al., 2023), other studies find no meaningful effects (Enyedi, 2016;Tsutsumi et al., 2018;Munzert et al., 2020), or effects that were limited to undecided (or centrist) voters (Vassil, 2011;Mahéo, 2016;Andı et al., 2023). Considering the methodological shortcomings in some of the experimental designs (Germann and Gemenis, 2019, p. 154-155), the lack of comparative replication studies, especially among the randomized experiments, and the "file drawer problem" where negative results are less likely to be published, we have valid reasons to be less enthusiastic about the electoral effects of VAAs compared to what has been suggested by the earlier literature. ...
The voter information tools collectively known as “Voting Advice Applications” (VAAs) have emerged as particularly popular tools in the realm of E-participation. Today, VAAs are integral parts of election campaigns in many countries around the world as they routinely engage millions of citizens, in addition to political actors and the media. This contribution assesses the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the design and dissemination of VAAs, considering normative, ethical, and methodological challenges. The study provides a comprehensive overview of AI applications in VAA development, from formulating questions to disseminating information, and concludes by highlighting areas where AI can serve as a valuable tool for enhancing the positive impact of VAAs on democratic processes.
... It led to methodological debates about positioning parties, about calculating overlaps between users' positions and those of the parties, to research questions that, for the first time, could be answered empirically (e.g. Bright et al. on transnational voting), to first experimental designs in VAAs (Vassil 2011), to detailed comparisons with the traditional party positioning efforts (Silva et al. 2021) -the list could be expanded. But it also led to some broken promises. ...
With this paper, we pay tribute to Peter Mair by looking back at the three waves (2009, 2014, 2019) of the pan-European Voting Advice Application (VAA) EU Profiler/euandi – a project in which Peter Mair had a very crucial role in its early years. We describe the unique standing of the EU Profiler/euandi in the VAA landscape and take an analytical look at the central elements of this tool. We show the project has been innovative in many ways, such as: a) in 2014 and 2019, more than half of the over 200 parties included in the project took part in the self-placement procedure, showing great interest towards the pan-European VAA; b) the EU Profiler/euandi team has managed to apply a common set of issue-statements to the whole EU and find the topics that are both salient (on most statements, more than 80% of the parties have been coded to have a distinguishable position) and polarize between parties (in a large majority of issues, there is a considerable share of parties on both sides of the centrepoint of the scale); c) the party placements on the central dimensions of the political space show high external validity with other prominent methods of party placement. At the same time, we reveal worrisome regional divergences, as the post-communist countries are less likely to co-operate with the VAA in self-placing themselves, have more parties that are left uncoded on many issues, and party positions in this region show less convergence with other methods. Also, when studying issue polarization at the European level, we demonstrate that party positions are often determined rather by the regional than ideological affiliation of the parties, raising some questions about whether and to what extent can we even talk about common EU political space. In the end of the paper, we present the data from the German euandi2021, one of the national stepping stones towards improving the VAA for the 2024 European edition. The paper ends with a retrospective discussion of which hopes and promises from more than a decade ago have/have not materialized.
... In effetti gran parte della letteratura internazionale dei primi anni Duemila si concentra sull'uso delle ICT come dispositivo di assistenza medica e sul tema della salute nell'età dell'invecchiamento (Loges, Jung 2001;Wellman, Haythornthwaite 2002;Birkland, Kaarst-Brown 2010. A partire dalle popolari espressioni «digital natives», «digital immigrants» (Prensky 2001) oppure «Net generation» (Tapscott 1998) o «grey digital divide» (Millward 2003) emergono riflessioni che travalicano il puntellato medico-sanitario focalizzandosi sulla valorizzazione delle soggettività e capacità dei singoli, e innestano nella relazione tra ICT e nei processi di invecchiamento dimensioni critiche (e considerazioni dei benefici) più squisitamente socio-culturali: questioni relative all'uso delle ICT nella erogazione dei servizi di cittadinanza (Roseman, Stephenson 2005), l'influenza dei dispositivi elettronici nell'informazione e partecipazione politica degli adulti più anziani (Norris 2003;Sourbati 2009;Vassil 2011;Wei 2012), il tema delle risorse di capitale sociale e dei livelli di social support (Livingstone, Helsper 2007;Nimrod 2010;Pfeil et al. 2010), il tema della diversità dell'esperienza umana plasmata dalle relazioni persone-luogo e persone-persone, (Gopinath 2018) o, in Italia, il rapporto tra generazioni di «nativi» e «migranti» digitali (Pieri, Diamantini 2010;Colombo, Carlo, Aroldi 2014). In tal senso l'approccio multidimensionale supera il determinismo tecnologico e rubrica l'età biologica come uno dei numerosi fattori che influenzano l'uso dei dispositivi tecnologici; ad essa vanno associate altre variabili quali genere, educazione, reddito, capitale sociale, contesto territoriale. ...
Il rapporto tra anziani e tecnologie gioca ormai un ruolo cruciale negli studi sull’invecchiamento attivo. Il saggio affronta il tema della capacitazione e della socializzazione igitale tra i componenti della società in età avanzata attraverso l’analisi comparata dei profili sociologici di un campione di soggetti di età compresa tra i 61 e 90 anni in tre città metropolitane italiane: Milano, Napoli, Roma.
I risultati dell’analisi enfatizzano il ruolo dell’alfabetizzazione digitale ed il supporto delle reti sociali nel processo di capacitazione digitale. Più che l’influenza di specifiche politiche attive i processi di alfabetizzazione digitale avvengono grazie all’inclusione degli anziani all’interno delle proprie reti con il supporto di alcuni attori centrali.
... In studies of their usage, researchers have asked whether VAAs 'mobilize the mobilized' ( Hirzalla and van Zoonen, 2015). And indeed, while VAAs have a heterogenous user base across demographics, interests, attitudes and behaviour (Vassil, 2011), there is an overrepresented subgroup of younger, mainly left-of-centre, urban and well-educated male users who are politically active or knowledgeable. This imbalance could lead to the conclusion that those who may benefit from political advice are not seeking it (Ruusuvirta, 2010). ...
... In studies of their usage, researchers have asked whether VAAs 'mobilize the mobilized' . And indeed, while VAAs have a heterogenous user base across demographics, interests, attitudes and behaviour (Vassil, 2011), there is an overrepresented subgroup of younger, mainly left-of-centre, urban and well-educated male users who are politically active or knowledgeable. This imbalance could lead to the conclusion that those who may benefit from political advice are not seeking it . ...
Disinformation and so-called fake news are contemporary phenomena with rich histories. Disinformation, or the willful introduction of false information for the purposes of causing harm, recalls infamous foreign interference operations in national media systems. Outcries over fake news, or dubious stories with the trappings of news, have coincided with the introduction of new media technologies that disrupt the publication, distribution and consumption of news -- from the so-called rumour-mongering broadsheets centuries ago to the blogosphere recently. Designating a news organization as fake, or der Lügenpresse, has a darker history, associated with authoritarian regimes or populist bombast diminishing the reputation of 'elite media' and the value of inconvenient truths. In a series of empirical studies, using digital methods and data journalism, the authors inquire into the extent to which social media have enabled the penetration of foreign disinformation operations, the widespread publication and spread of dubious content as well as extreme commentators with considerable followings attacking mainstream media as fake.
In recent years, powerful new forms of influence have been discovered that the internet has made possible. In the present paper, we introduce another new form of influence which we call the “opinion matching effect” (OME). Many websites now promise to help people form opinions about products, political candidates, and political parties by first administering a short quiz and then informing people how closely their answers match product characteristics or the views of a candidate or party. But what if the matching algorithm is biased? We first present data from real opinion matching websites, showing that responding at random to their online quizzes can produce significantly higher proportions of recommendations for one political party or ideology than one would expect by chance. We then describe a randomized, controlled, counterbalanced, double-blind experiment that measured the possible impact of this type of matching on the voting preferences of real, undecided voters. With data obtained from a politically diverse sample of 773 eligible US voters, we observed substantial shifts in voting preferences toward our quiz’s favored candidate–between 51% and 95% of the number of people who had supported that candidate before we administered and scored the quiz. These shifts occurred without any participants showing any awareness of having been manipulated. In summary, in the present study we show not only that OME is a large effect; we also show that biased online questionnaires exist that might be shifting people’s opinions without their knowledge.
Voting requires lots of information. In most democracies, elections leave voters with dozens, if not thousands, of voting possibilities. Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have primarily been recognized as a guide for voters through their electoral decision-making. However, the use of such digital tools is still limited. In this paper, we analyze how voters’ characteristics affect the use of VAAs and what makes individuals not use the application. We present the results of a panel survey where we randomly invited part of the survey respondents to use a VAA during an electoral campaign in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. Our results show that while significant differences exist between respondents in and out of the experimental setting, political knowledge, and interest are consistent drivers of VAA use. Additionally, we show that more than half of non-VAA users indicate that they do not need assistance from a VAA as a reason for not using the tool and that factors influencing this reason are similar to factors that affect the use of VAAs. In doing so, we add to the literature on the use and biases of VAAs and the general understanding of why people use or don’t use digital tools.
Disinformation and so-called fake news are contemporary phenomena with rich histories. Disinformation, or the willful introduction of false information for the purposes of causing harm, recalls infamous foreign interference operations in national media systems. Outcries over fake news, or dubious stories with the trappings of news, have coincided with the introduction of new media technologies that disrupt the publication, distribution and consumption of news -- from the so-called rumour-mongering broadsheets centuries ago to the blogosphere recently. Designating a news organization as fake, or der Lügenpresse , has a darker history, associated with authoritarian regimes or populist bombast diminishing the reputation of 'elite media' and the value of inconvenient truths. In a series of empirical studies, using digital methods and data journalism, the authors inquire into the extent to which social media have enabled the penetration of foreign disinformation operations, the widespread publication and spread of dubious content as well as extreme commentators with considerable followings attacking mainstream media as fake.
That there is a "digital divide"—which falls between those who have and can afford the latest in technological tools and those who have neither in our society—is indisputable. Virtual Inequality redefines the issue as it explores the cascades of that divide, which involve access, skill, political participation, as well as the obvious economics. Computer and Internet access are insufficient without the skill to use the technology, and economic opportunity and political participation provide primary justification for realizing that this inequality is a public problem and not simply a matter of private misfortune.
Defying those who say the divide is growing smaller, this volume, based on a unique national survey that includes data from over 1800 respondents in low-income communities, shows otherwise. In addition to demonstrating why disparities persist in such areas as technological abilities, the survey also shows that the digitally disadvantaged often share many of the same beliefs as their more privileged counterparts. African-Americans, for instance, are even more positive in their attitudes toward technology than whites are in many respects, contrary to conventional wisdom. The rigorous research on which the conclusions are based is presented accessibly and in an easy-to-follow manner.
Not content with analysis alone, nor the untangling of the complexities of policymaking, Virtual Inequality views the digital divide compassionately in its human dimensions and recommends a set of practical and common-sense policy strategies. Inequality, even in a virtual form this book reminds us, is unacceptable and a situation that society is compelled to address.
Economic conditions are said to affect election outcomes, but past research has produced unstable and contradictory findings. This book argues that these problems are caused by the failure to take account of electoral competition between parties. A research strategy to correct this problem is designed and applied to investigate effects of economic conditions on (individual) voter choices and (aggregate) election outcomes over 42 elections in 15 countries. It shows that economic conditions exert small effects on individual party preferences, which can have large consequences for election outcomes. In countries where responsibility for economic policy is clear, voters vote retrospectively and reward or punish incumbent parties - although in coalition systems smaller government parties often gain at the expense of the largest party when economic conditions deteriorate. Where clarity of responsibility for economic policy is less clear, voters vote more prospectively on the basis of expected party policies.