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Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications

Micha Germann Orcid Logo, Fernando Mendez Orcid Logo, Jonathan Wheatley Orcid Logo, Constantinos Djouvas Orcid Logo, Roula Nezi Orcid Logo, Matthew Wall Orcid Logo

European Journal of Political Research

Swansea University Author: Matthew Wall Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1111/1475-6765.70024

Abstract

Voting advice applications (VAAs) have proliferated in recent years. However, most VAAs only match their users with parties, at least in part because creating a VAA matching voters to individual candidates tends to be more labour‐intensive. This could be an important missed opportunity. Candidates m...

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Published in: European Journal of Political Research
ISSN: 0304-4130 1475-6765
Published: Wiley 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69341
first_indexed 2025-04-24T10:30:36Z
last_indexed 2025-08-07T08:10:41Z
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spelling 2025-08-06T14:47:34.3640907 v2 69341 2025-04-24 Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications 22914658d586a5759d4d4b945ea140bd 0000-0001-8265-4910 Matthew Wall Matthew Wall true false 2025-04-24 SOSS Voting advice applications (VAAs) have proliferated in recent years. However, most VAAs only match their users with parties, at least in part because creating a VAA matching voters to individual candidates tends to be more labour‐intensive. This could be an important missed opportunity. Candidates may deviate from the party line, but voters are often unaware of the policy platforms of individual candidates and therefore rarely hold them accountable for their issue positions in candidate‐based elections. VAAs providing information on issue congruence with individual candidates could help to rectify this. We evaluate the potential of candidate‐level VAAs by integrating a randomized experiment into a real‐world VAA whereby users were exposed either to candidate‐level VAA advice or to more standard party‐level VAA advice. Our results suggest that candidate‐level VAAs are worth the extra effort: they help voters distinguish candidates from parties and cast votes that are more in line with their policy preferences. Journal Article European Journal of Political Research 0 Wiley 0304-4130 1475-6765 voting advice applications, candidate preferences, democratic representation, issue voting, field experiment 24 4 2025 2025-04-24 10.1111/1475-6765.70024 Research Note COLLEGE NANME Social Sciences School COLLEGE CODE SOSS Swansea University Another institution paid the OA fee Economic and Social Research Council (Grant Number: ES/W000598/1), British Academy (Grant Number: SRG20\200273) 2025-08-06T14:47:34.3640907 2025-04-24T11:19:03.5200768 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Social Sciences - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations Micha Germann 0000-0002-5217-3240 1 Fernando Mendez 0000-0003-0462-5086 2 Jonathan Wheatley 0000-0002-0189-3598 3 Constantinos Djouvas 0000-0003-1215-7294 4 Roula Nezi 0000-0003-0096-0653 5 Matthew Wall 0000-0001-8265-4910 6 69341__34084__c8d9d735c2cb4645b0ccd86d906f5c79.pdf 1475-6765.70024.pdf 2025-04-24T11:19:03.4859280 Output 382062 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2025 The Author(s). European Journal of Political Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications
spellingShingle Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications
Matthew Wall
title_short Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications
title_full Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications
title_fullStr Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications
title_full_unstemmed Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications
title_sort Improving issue representation with candidate‐level voting advice applications
author_id_str_mv 22914658d586a5759d4d4b945ea140bd
author_id_fullname_str_mv 22914658d586a5759d4d4b945ea140bd_***_Matthew Wall
author Matthew Wall
author2 Micha Germann
Fernando Mendez
Jonathan Wheatley
Constantinos Djouvas
Roula Nezi
Matthew Wall
format Journal article
container_title European Journal of Political Research
container_volume 0
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
issn 0304-4130
1475-6765
doi_str_mv 10.1111/1475-6765.70024
publisher Wiley
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Social Sciences - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Social Sciences - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations
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description Voting advice applications (VAAs) have proliferated in recent years. However, most VAAs only match their users with parties, at least in part because creating a VAA matching voters to individual candidates tends to be more labour‐intensive. This could be an important missed opportunity. Candidates may deviate from the party line, but voters are often unaware of the policy platforms of individual candidates and therefore rarely hold them accountable for their issue positions in candidate‐based elections. VAAs providing information on issue congruence with individual candidates could help to rectify this. We evaluate the potential of candidate‐level VAAs by integrating a randomized experiment into a real‐world VAA whereby users were exposed either to candidate‐level VAA advice or to more standard party‐level VAA advice. Our results suggest that candidate‐level VAAs are worth the extra effort: they help voters distinguish candidates from parties and cast votes that are more in line with their policy preferences.
published_date 2025-04-24T05:27:55Z
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