Voting Advice Application
Encyclopedia
A voting advice application or voting aid application (VAA) is an Internet application that helps voters find a party that stands closest to their preferences. VAAs are a new phenomenon in modern election campaigning.
In some of the countries with popular VAAs an intense debate has broken out. Some maintain that VAAs are a fraud that can never give correct and neutral voting advice. Others contend that these applications must be commended as they focus people’s attention on the party programmes and on policy issues, compelling parties to discuss substance instead of personalities, images and campaign events
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A study of VAAs by the University of Antwerp
ends with a plea for a careful selection of VAA statements and for a proper process of benchmarking based on survey data. Without appropriate calibrating VAAs produce invalid results.
The impressive numbers of users visiting VAA websites have led some political scientists to hypothesize an effect of these tools on voters’ electoral behaviour. Questions about VAAs’ ability to motivate users to turn out and vote (possibly for the party advised by the application) have been repeatedly raised. In 2010, the increasing academic interest in VAAs has resulted in the volume Voting Advice Applications in Europe: The State of the Art (eds. Lorella Cedroni and Diego Garzia), which represents the first comparative attempt to answer such questions.
In some of the countries with popular VAAs an intense debate has broken out. Some maintain that VAAs are a fraud that can never give correct and neutral voting advice. Others contend that these applications must be commended as they focus people’s attention on the party programmes and on policy issues, compelling parties to discuss substance instead of personalities, images and campaign events
Campaign advertising
'In politics, campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign through newspapers, radio commercials, television commercials, etc.) to influence the decisions made for and by groups. These ads are designed by political consultants and the political campaign staff...
.
A study of VAAs by the University of Antwerp
University of Antwerp
The University of Antwerp is one of the major Belgian universities located in the city of Antwerp. The name is sometimes abbreviated as UA.-History:...
ends with a plea for a careful selection of VAA statements and for a proper process of benchmarking based on survey data. Without appropriate calibrating VAAs produce invalid results.
The impressive numbers of users visiting VAA websites have led some political scientists to hypothesize an effect of these tools on voters’ electoral behaviour. Questions about VAAs’ ability to motivate users to turn out and vote (possibly for the party advised by the application) have been repeatedly raised. In 2010, the increasing academic interest in VAAs has resulted in the volume Voting Advice Applications in Europe: The State of the Art (eds. Lorella Cedroni and Diego Garzia), which represents the first comparative attempt to answer such questions.
See also
- Vote Match (UK)Vote Match (UK)A Vote Match is a short, online quiz for voters to answer questions about their opinions and have them matched to the policies of the political parties. The idea is not to tell people how to vote. Rather, it is about informing people of the policies of the different political parties and to...
- smartvoteSmartvotesmartvote is a voting advice application for citizens in the forefront of elections. In Switzerland Politools Network offers these services since 2003 and on the basis of project cooperations partly also in foreign countries .- Functioning :On the basis of a standardised questionnaire of 30–70...
- Electoral CompassElectoral CompassThe Electoral Compass is a voting advice website. Visitors can use the application to discover their position in the political landscape for upcoming elections. Electoral Compass was officially established at the VU Amsterdam on October 23, 2007....
- Vote CompassVote CompassVote Compass is a Canadian online electoral literacy application. Visitors can use this application to explore their position in the political landscape during a given election...
(Canada) - helpmevote (Greece)
- Wahl-O-Mat (Germany)