Research on the Wahl-O-Mat

On this website you will find information about research on the Wahl-O-Mat as well as about its functioning and effects.

The Wahl-O-Mat is an online tool offered by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education and has become a successful web project that helps to increase political participation and communication prior to elections on the European, the federal and the state level in Germany.

Since its first implementation for the German federal elections in 2002, the Wahl-O-Mat has become one of the most popular and famous online tools in Germany. Its initial success spurred new versions for the federal elections in 2005 and 2009, the European Elections in 2004 and 2009, and nearly all elections on the sub-national level. Prior to the German Federal Elections of 2009 the Wahl-O-Mat was played over 6.7 million times.

 Right from the beginning the Wahl-O-Mat has been object of scientific research. In almost all versions of Wahl-O-Mat, the users have been asked why they use the Wahl-O-Mat and what effect using this tool might have on them. Furthermore, demographic data (age, education, level, etc.) have been collected. On this website we present the results of these surveys.