Electoral volatility and fragmentation: Effects of voting advice, issue voting and news on the vote

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are the most often used political websites during election campaigns in multiparty systems. This article investigates whether their voting advice has an impact on the vote choice of different types of VAA users, taking into account voters' previous vote, pre-campaign preference, horse race news coverage of each party, and issue agreement with parties. The study is based on national election studies in five countries and on two three-wave panel surveys for the Dutch national election campaigns of 2010 and 2012, each with a pre- campaign wave to measure prior vote intention, a pre-election wave to measure VAA use and advice obtained from VAAs, and a post-election wave to measure the actual vote. The research results show a huge impact of VAAs, which thereby contribute to electoral volatility and fragmentation, even when controlled for other factors. Politically sophisticated voters most often use VAAs, but less sophisticated voters are influenced most heavily by VAA advice.