Election Calculator

Election Calculator (Czech website VolebniKalkulacka.cz and Slovak website VolebnaKalkulacka.sk) is the most successful project of KohoVolit.eu. It is so called voting advice application, an online test that helps voters make an informed decision in elections. It matches political preferences provided by a user with political parties and candidates.

VolebníKalkulačka.cz

Volebná kalkulačka

Volební kalkulačka

Election Calculator is a short online test where a user answers a series of Yes/No/Don’t know questions about political topics and values relevant to given elections. Then the user can assign each question a relative importance. Eventually, the application displays a degree of match between the user and each political party or candidate expressed by a numeric value of 0 % to 100 %. The user can then investigate parties’ or candidates’ responses to each question in detail.

Basic principles

KohoVolit.eu has been developing the Election Calculators since 2006 for almost each elections on all levels of political competition (European, presidential, parliamentary, regional and municipal) in Czech republic and Slovakia and for elections of individuals and representative bodies of universities. We have developed more than 40 applications so far. KohoVolit.eu is the leading developer of these applications in both countries and it successfully introduced the term “election calculator” as a general expression for this type of applications in Czech and Slovak languages.

Election Caculators of KohoVolit.eu are the most successful voting advice applications not only in both countries but also in the post-Communist region. For example, the Election Calculators for the presidential or the parliamentary elections in Czech republic in 2013 reached more than 1 million unique users (20 % of all voters), which is comparable to similar applications in Western Europe. It exceeds the success of similar applications in other Central and Eastern European countries.

Thanks to KohoVolit.eu, the concept of the Election Calculator is strongly embedded in public political discourse. Media have been regularly informing about our Election Calculators, sharing them or creating their owns. Political parties take these applications into serious consideration. For example, in the presidential elections in Czech republic in 2013, eight out of nine candidates provided their answers. In the parliamentary elections in 2013, it was 21 of 23 of parties. In the Senate elections in 2012, it was 176 of 233 o candidates.

KohoVolit.eu creates several types of Election Calculators:

Opinion Test

Opinion tests are developed prior to elections. They contain general Yes/No/Don’t know political and value questions that are relevant to the given elections (e.g. related to political powers of the elected body). KohoVolit.eu gathers data by directly asking political parties or candidates running in the elections. We do not use election manifestos or media statements.

Single-issue Opinion Test

Single-issue opinion tests are similar to general opinion tests. They contain questions related to a single issue. KohoVolit.eu has created opinion tests focused on the environment, gender equality, health and food quality, information technologies and opened data, business or family finances. The single-issue opinion tests have been developed in cooperation with several high-profile media or interest groups.

Inventory of Voting

Inventory of Voting is an Election Calculator which contains actual votes that took place in a representative body (e.g. in a parliament or a local assembly). Their users can find out whether individual elected representatives voted the same way they would have voted. KohoVolit.eu has developed pre-elections Inventories of Voting, as well as annual Inventories that contain important votes taken in a previous year.

Goals and functions

Election Cacultors are usually perceived as tools designed to assist the user in deciding who to vote for in elections. Voting advice is, however, not the only function of such applications.

They inform users about the elections and about political parties and candidates running in the elections.
They inform users about topics which are relevant and important for the elections.
They inform users about political positions and preferences of parties, legislators and candidates.
They support critical thinking of users by provoking them to reflect on political issues that they would otherwise never think about.
They help to crystalize political positions of parties or candidates by forcing them to unambiguously answer a large number of relevant questions.
They reduce impact of agenda setting by political parties and candidates during the election campaign by covering a wider range of topics, many of which mainstram media, political parties or candidates would intentionally omit to cover.

They support political watchdog acitivities. Answers of political parties or candidates for the Election Calculator questions can be seen as a list of commitments that parties or candidates willingly subscribe to. Their real post-elections behavior can be compared against these commitments by political watchdogs.
They create a high-quality dataset of political positions of parties and candidates which is useful for academic research. Political scientists analyze correlations in parties’ and candidates’ answers, changes in time or differences among political actors from various countries.
Selected Election Calculators are accompanied by a short user-oriented questionnaire. Responses of users are being used in academic research of political positions. Thanks to these questionnaires, we can assess real impact of Election Calculators on elections.

Website traffic around the 2013 Czech parliamentary elections

Inventory of Voting

We developed several Election Calculators for these elections. The first one was the Inventory of Voting launched on 9 September 2013. It contained actual votes taken in the Parliament during its 2010-2013 term. Users were able to find out how real votes of their MPs matched their political preferences.

Opinion Test

The Opinion Test was launched on 25 September. This calculator contained 35 questions relevant to the elections. It displayed match with political parties running in the elections. On 12 October, we introduced a de luxe version of the test that contained as many as 80 questions.