Vaalikoneet ja rationaalinen päätöksenteko

Abstract

This article analyses the potentially rationalising impact that online voting advice application (VAA) use may have on citizens’ vote choice. In other words, having used a VAA, does the user vote for a candidate which, according to the VAA, best matches her opinion profile. Certain background variables, such as the user’s interest in politics, party identification and socio-economic background can be expected to affect how much VAAs can rationalise user’s vote choice. A simple pre-test post-test quasi-experiment of 292 high school and vocational school students was used to test the hypothesis in connection with the 2006 Finnish Presidential Election. The findings suggest that using a VAA does not significantly improve the rationality of the vote choice for those users who are interested in politics and identify with a political party whereas those who are not interest in politics and do not have a strong party identification may benefit from VAA use. All in all, this study suggests that the rationalising impact of VAA use for vote choice is relatively minor