Impact of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on Voter Turnout and Their Potential Use for Civic Education

Abstract A low level of voter turnout and a certain alienation of citizens from politics are well‐known challenges to many modern democracies. At the same time a special type of political website called Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) attracts millions of voters all over Europe. They offer voters a new approach for choosing candidates or political parties to vote for. VAAs seem to be particularly popular among young voters. In this article we try to assess whether these tools have the potential to increase voter turnout and whether they could be used to improve civic educational programs. We do this based on data from Switzerland and the Swiss VAA smartvote.