How Many People Use Voting Advice Applications? Survey Evidence From 15 Democracies Worldwide

In this short note, we offer an update on previous assessments of voting advice application (VAA) usage with representative samples from National Election Studies in established democracies worldwide. We map the spread of VAAs among the voting population in those countries in which post-election surveys asked their respondents whether they had used VAAs during the national election campaign. Our empirical base encompasses data from 48 elections held in 15 countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland) between 2003 and 2024. Beyond mapping VAA usage over time, our analysis focuses on the (potentially changing) individual-level correlates of VAA usage in a longitudinal perspective. The findings show a continuous increase in VAA usage figures in a large majority of the countries under analysis, but also provide little evidence of changes in the sociodemographic composition of the population of VAA users.