Online Voting Tools Launch Before Municipal Elections

StemWijzer and Kieskompas Voting Tools
At a national level, the new StemWijzer platform will be launched on February 18, giving all voters access to a tool to compare their views on various topics with each political party's views. Some municipalities have developed their own independent voting guides through Kieskompas, which will help users understand how their views align with the political positions in their municipality. Both StemWijzer and Kieskompas present users with statements about broad political issues and how closely their responses matched the responses from the political parties. In addition to being used for municipal elections, StemWijzer and Kieskompas will also help voters understand the political parties they support as they prepare to vote in their local municipality. Examples of municipalities that currently provide Kieskompas are Oegstgeest. Both StemWijzer and Kieskompas were created to help voters make better decisions when it comes to the political parties they vote for in the election.

MijnStem Tool Will Help Voters in Amstelveen
To make it easier for voters to compare how different political parties view them, MijnStem was created in Amstelveen. As of the date of this writing, MijnStem is available for use at mijnstem.nl/amstelveen and is available in both English and Dutch. MijnStem was developed in coordination with the eleven local political parties in Amstelveen and includes 24 statements, which cover various topics, including housing, health care, education, Schiphol Airport, the reception of asylum seekers, and climate policy. Users can indicate how much they agree with the political parties using sliding points and will receive results indicating which political parties' views are most consistent with their own. Each political party will provide an explanation of its views with their responses to assist voters in making informed decisions. Local government officials hope that the results of the MijnStem initiative will increase participation among Amstelveen residents in the upcoming municipal election on March 18 by providing enough information for voters to make an informed decision.