Wiekiesjij, translated as 'Whodoyouvotefor', is our latest installment in our series of eDemocracy applications. Wiekiesjij enables voters to gather and compare information on individual candidates in parliamentary and local elections to support preferential voting behaviour among voters.

Visitors answer a series of ten simple questions on personal characteristics and experiences. Whodoyouvotefor than selects your favorite candidates.

Who gets your vote?

Political surveys show that as democracy develops in its more advanced stages, voters are increasingly interested in their candidates' personal characteristics rather than just their party affiliation.

In the Netherlands, voters have the ability to cast a preferential vote on a specific candidate. However, up to 90% of Dutch voters effectively waste this opportunity by voting for the party leader, thereby reducing the elected parliamentary delegation to about 16 members out of 150 who have gained enough votes to secure their seat in parliament. Wiekiesjij aims to correct this democratic glitch by educating the Dutch electorate about their preferential vote and providing the information to browse for a matching candidate.

How does it work?

By answering a series of 10 question about a voter's personal preferences, a voter can ask the system to provide a matching preferential voting advice. The system will incorporate characteristics such as political characteristics and party affiliation, but also personal characteristics such as age, education, and religious beliefs. The system matches the answers to its own database consisting of profiles which have been pre-filled by all political candidates standing for election in the user's constituency. The end result is a shortlist of 5 candidates on a percentage scale according to a most likely match.

For Parliament...

Wiekiesjij was first developed for the 2006 Parliamentary elections in the Netherlands. Over ninety percent of all standing candidates have responded enthousiastically and have filled in their profiles. Voters were just as enthousiastic: in only a short period, Wiekiesjij has provided over 500.000 unique online preferential voting advices.

And local elections...

The success of Wiekiesjij has been repeated in the 2007 provincial elections in the Netherlands in which Wiekiesjij was implemented in five provinces reaching about 300.000 voters.

Like to hear why we think your preferential vote is important? Read our article...

Facts:

URL: www.wiekiesjij.nl

Visitors: more than 500.000 during the last national elections in 2006.

Politicians: more than 90% of all candidate parliamentarians have filled in their profile on wiekiesjij.

Current

At this moment development for a third version of WhoDoYouVoteFor for the upcoming 2009 European Parliamentary elections is underway. Read our pitch, or become a volunteer.

Screenshots

Partners

The New Voting Foundation owes its gratitude to the Institute for Public and Politics (IPP) for their support for WieKiesJij.