Note: This article is about the 2021 German federal election (Bundestagswahl). The tools listed are German-language voting aids designed to help German voters understand party positions.
Since I share some of the criticism of the Wahl-O-Mat (Germany's official party matcher), I want to introduce the alternatives and complements here.
For completeness, my personal criticisms of the Wahl-O-Mat:
- One-dimensional → there's no nuance or "not like this, but like this:" option
- It only reflects what politicians say, not what they actually do. It would be nice if those two things didn't diverge so often.
- Only a limited set of political theses is covered.
All these points have some merit: you can't go infinitely deep, of course.
Still, I find the basic concept of the Wahl-O-Mat genuinely useful, because it enables discussion and can establish a rough "alignment". If I have 2% overlap with a party, the chance that I should vote for them is very very small.
Now there aren't just the Wahl-O-Mat, but also various alternative voting aids with different angles, which I'd like to collect and present here.
DeinWal.de
Link: deinwal.de
The current version for the 2021 election wasn't online yet when I wrote this, but the concept of deinwal.de is my absolute favourite! Rather than comparing party manifestos or what parties currently claim to stand for, it compares past votes in parliament against your own views.
Even before the BTW21 version launched, you could work through older elections to see how the major parties actually voted back then. Tip: try the 2019 European election and BTW2017.
Every question comes with detailed information and direct links to the parliamentary press release, abgeordnetenwatch, and Wikipedia.
Every vote is rated Yes/No/Abstention and placed in context at the end. Weighting is not possible.
Despite the lack of smaller parties, a clear recommendation, especially for politically engaged users who want a lot of background information.
Edit: The newest version of deinWal is finally online. The core concept is unchanged. Unfortunately, the main disadvantage remains: only established parties are included.
Wahlswiper
Link: voteswiper.org
Here you can, Tinder-style, swipe political statements good/bad and at the end find out your overlap with the parties.
The good news: 35 of 39 parties are included, so you'll find smaller parties like LIEBE or the Party for Children, Young People and Families.
As a bonus, every question comes with a short video and text explaining the topic objectively. Questions can be rated with Agreement/Rejection/Abstention. Topics that matter especially to you can be double-weighted.
Also a good recommendation for beginners, especially for people who don't usually follow politics closely.
Sozial-O-Mat
Link: sozial-o-mat.de
Exclusively focused on social policy, the Sozial-O-Mat compares your views with those of the parties purely on social issues. It covers four topic areas:
- Work
- Health
- Family and Children
- Migration
Operated by the Diakonie (a German social welfare organisation). Each of the four topics opens with a short introduction highlighting its relevance.
Instead of videos or explanations, each thesis is supported by a "story": a personal narrative to help frame the issue. Interesting concept, though it does nudge the reader in a certain direction.
Each thesis can be rated Positive/Neutral/Negative, or skipped to remove it from the equation.
Good for a rough overview; I'd treat it mainly as a supplement.
Steuer-O-Mat
Link: smartsteuer
One of the shortest and most direct voting aids: the Steuer-O-Mat very straightforwardly calculates your approximate net income under each party's tax plans.
Enter your gross salary, optionally your married partner's, and get a pure tax-based voting recommendation.
Agrar-O-Mat
Link: agrarheute.com
Since, as we all know, food obviously only comes from the supermarket, this voting aid is strictly for farmers ;).
As the name suggests, it focuses exclusively on agricultural policy and adjacent topics. No additional background information.
Each thesis can be agreed with, rated neutrally, or rejected. Important topics can be double-weighted.
Interesting as a curiosity and supplement, but I personally lack the expertise to go really deep into agricultural policy.
Klima-Wahl-Check
Link: klimawahlcheck.org
I also write about climate here on the blog and will definitely cover it much more, but specifically climate-focused there's the Klimawahlcheck.
It's divided into 6 categories:
- Energy
- Mobility
- Industry
- Buildings
- Climate Justice & Climate Targets
- Agriculture & Biodiversity
Personally one of the most important tools for me, because it's not just about "the climate" in a naive sense: it actually covers all the interconnected social, economic, and scientific topics as well.
Unlike the others, each topic is rated on a 5-step scale from red to green. Topics can also be skipped. Each thesis comes with a short background summary.
Afterwards you see an overview diagram placing parties to the left/right/aligned with you. After completing all categories there's a full evaluation.
As I said, this is the most important tool for me personally: climate decisions have significant knock-on effects for the economy, quality of life, and even survival.
Clear recommendation. Obviously ;).
Waehlbar2021
Link: waehlbar2021.de
Going well beyond a simple matcher, waehlbar2021 provides comprehensive background information AND detailed positions from almost all parties. CDU/CSU is predictably missing: apparently they figured that not responding at all means nobody can hold them to anything.
The best feature: seeing directly the MPs from your own constituency with their voting records. Enter your postcode and get all local candidates suggested, including their alignment on individual theses.
MPs who haven't yet responded can be messaged directly here asking for transparency.
A clear recommendation here too.
Wahl-o-Mat
Link: wahl-o-mat.de
Finally it arrived. As the best-known voting aid, the Wahl-O-Mat interviewed 39 of the 40 competing parties on numerous questions.
I have to admit this year's version is slightly better than before. While there's still no detailed background for questions or enough nuance, we now have the ability to compare all parties directly (thank you Volt for that), plus the option to play around with the results and weighting afterwards.
I personally got a different result than from the other tools, which at least broadens the perspective.
The questions are also quite varied and cover different areas, though of course familiar topics like a motorway speed limit pop up almost everywhere.
A clear recommendation here too.
Conclusion
In my view, every voter should work through at least one (but ideally all) of these tools before the election, to get a feeling for exactly what each party stands for.
One of the biggest problems in our democracy (in my opinion) is that parties and politicians have learned to speak without making any concrete commitments. This leads many people to vote for parties that are actually completely unsuitable for their own interests. The voting aids don't change that fact, but they help build an understanding of party positions without needing to read full manifestos.
My recommendation is this "formula":
Work through all the voting aids
Exclude parties that consistently land in the bottom third
Then weight all the tools:
1/3¹ from deinWahl, since it's the only tool that goes beyond (possibly empty) promises.
If you're considering smaller parties too, I'd recommend using deinWal at least as an exclusion criterion: I'd rule out the two worst-performing parties.
¹ assuming you're only considering established parties anyway
1/3 from the other tools, by giving points to each recommended party
1/3 from your own research. Here it's important not to be influenced either by Tagesschau/ZDFheute etc., or (and this is crucial!) by Facebook/WhatsApp groups/etc.
Take the things that matter to you (pension, taxes, climate, whatever) and explicitly engage with the opposing positions and arguments too. This ensures we're not making a pure gut decision for one of the most important elections in decades.