Raphaël Kies and Marc Schoentgen, founders of the Smartwielen project, spoke to Today Radio’s Sam Steen about how their tool can help undecided voters in the run up to the 8 October elections.
Smartwielen, a project of the University of Luxembourg and the Zentrum fir politesch Bildung (Centre for Citizenship Education, ZpB), uses 44 questions to match voters with parties and candidates aligning with their values. The site is an adapted version of smartvote, a so-called VAA (Voting Advice Application) that was first developed in Switzerland in 2003 and is operated by Politools.
The founders explained that although Smartwielen is not a new tool, having been around since 2009 and in use since the 2018 elections, the site has been updated to better reflect the current political landscape. The questions were reworked earlier this year following an appeal to the public for ideas - which resulted in nearly 400 suggestions - and were selected in collaboration with Uni.lu.
The questions are designed to be diverse, topical and pertinent to the party programmes for the upcoming elections. As a result, the site offers a wealth of information on the Grand Duchy and the varying manifestos, helping voters to choose between parties and candidates from a position of neutrality. Around 177,500 undecided voters have made use of the tool already.
One distinction in Luxembourg’s elections is the fact that not all candidates will share their party’s official position. The tool therefore offers results based not only on the parties aligning with a user’s values, but also individual candidates depending on the selected constituency.
Listen to this interview below, or find more episodes of the Sam Steen Show on RTL Today Radio.
Unsure about who to vote for in the upcoming general election? Smartwielen might be able to help.
