Komunat - The impact of Voting Advice Applications on Local Politics

Local elections overwhelm voters with endless candidate lists. We analyze usage data from KOMUNAT, a voting advice app, to improve how citizens find candidates who match their views.

Exploratory AnalysisVisualizationReporting SurveyProcess

Status: Finished
Project Period: January 2020 – June 2020
Outputs: Video Podcast Episode
Partner: VOTO

With its digital platform for creating online voting aids, VOTO gUG promotes Germany's democratic system.
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Who thinks of the endless, confusing lists of candidates when they hear the word "local elections"? That's why KOMUNAT was developed - an election decision-making tool for the 2019 local elections in Stuttgart. Each candidate was able to state their own attitude to various statements. Users rated the same statements in an online application and received a ranking of the candidates based on the similarity of their attitudes. The CorrelAid team analyzed the anonymous usage data - for example, usage statistics, response tendencies of participants and candidates, the influence of a KOMUNAT profile on the share of votes - and provided feedback for the further development of KOMUNAT. The results were summarized in a report and an interactive Shiny app.