Niedersachs-O-Mat goes online for the state elections

It’s the last leg of the state election campaign: on 15^th October 2017, Lower Saxony will be voting. And, as ever, for the voters the question is: Who should I vote for? Now, three political scientists are offering online electoral guidance: the Niedersachs-O-Mat. The team led by professors Nils C. Bandelow (Technische Universität Braunschweig), Uwe Wagschal (University of Freiburg) and Stefan Marschall (University of Düsseldorf) received technical support from the Baden-Württemberg agency for civic education, the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung. “We are happy that with the help of experienced teams we can provide online electoral guidance for the state elections in such an important Federal State as Lower Saxony,” says Nils Bandelow.

The Niedersachs-O-Mat enables users to discover which of the many parties suits their personal beliefs. Users can investigate which party most represents their political positions, or which party is furthest from them. Thirteen of the total fifteen parties that are standing in the state election responded to the 38 statements provided by the experts. Only the Liberal-Konservative Reformer (LKR) and the Bündnis Grundeinkommen (BGE) did not participate.

The Niedersachs-O-Mat essentially follows the same process as other forms of online electoral guidance. Thirty-eight statements are selected from a range, and participants can then rate them with “yes”, “no” or “neutral”. Stefan Marschall, who also oversees the Wahl-O-Mat, explains, “‘We were able to draw on experiences with other online electoral guidance tools to create the Niedersachs-O-Mat.”

The Niedersachs-O-Mat can be accessed either via the website www.niedersachs-o-mat.de or via www.kandidat-o-mat.de, which is managed by the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg.

 Use of the Niedersachs-O-Mat, which took the experts an intensive period of five weeks to develop, is free and anonymous. It is also possible to take part voluntarily in an anonymous online survey. “We hope this will give citizens of Lower Saxony, as in many other elections, an important means of obtaining information on the positions of the parties,” Uwe Wagschal explains.

Access to the Niedersachs-O-Mat

www.niedersachs-o-mat.de

www.kandidat-o-mat.de