Drawing on cognitive theories of information and democracy, this paper argues that carefully designed voting advice applications (VAAs) strengthen voter competence by matching voters’ preferences on important policy issues with parties' relevant positions on those issues.
To examine the causal effect of information acquisition on voting willingness, we employed a lab experiment on the pioneering VAA program in Taiwan: iVoter. Our participants consisted of 120 undergraduates who were randomly assigned to be treated (two groups) or controlled (one group). Each participant of the respective treatment groups was provided with full or partial information. The purpose was to identify the ideological distance between the participant and the respective political parties. Individuals in the control group did not receive the respective information prior to their decision on whether to vote or not.
Those who received full relevant information were most willing to vote in the forthcoming elections. We furthermore found VAA utilization to be positively associated with other aspects of democracy, such as political enthusiasm, civic duty and political efficacy.
This paper aims to contribute to the development of VAAs and to democracy as a whole by confirming a causal link between receiving relevant information and voting willingness.
