Low education, high effects? The impact of Voting Advice Applications on an underexposed segment of users

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have become central tools in the democratic pre-election discourse. The positive effects they have on the interest in politics and election campaigns, voter participation, and political knowledge are widely shared in research. However, a number of studies show that VAAs are primarily used by people with formal higher education and a high level of political interest. This article takes this as a starting point to examine the mechanisms that lead individuals to feel motivated to participate in an election, feel reinforced in their voting decision, or even be convinced by the content of another party through a VAA. Based on data collected before the 2021 German federal election and drawing on path models, we find that formal education does not have a direct effect on whether respondents are mobilized to participate in the election or are converted in their voting decision by the popular German VAA, the Wahl-O-Mat. However, we find a negative effect of formally average or lower education on being reinforced in an existing voting decision by the Wahl-O-Mat. More relevant, nonetheless, are the mechanisms through which learning effects attributed to the Wahl-O-Mat work. We observe that having a medium or low education level does contribute to gaining more awareness of party positions and differences in party positions through the Wahl-O-Mat. This, in turn, significantly leads to being more mobilized, being more likely to change party choice, or being reinforced in a preexisting voting decision. The findings presented have high relevance for research on Voting Advice Applications, as they examine attitudes and the subjectively attributed impact of such a tool. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the attribution of having learned from a tool like the Wahl-O-Mat is particularly important for people with a medium or low formal education level.. For the development of such VAAs, the findings are of interest, as they vividly show how crucial the learning experience is for users to derive actionable implications.