Genuine effects of vote advice applications on party choice Filtering out factors that affect both the advice obtained and the vote

Previous research shows effects of the advice from voting advice applications (VAAs) on party choice. These effects could be spurious because of common origins of the obtained advice and party choice in antecedent factors like prior voting, issue voting and campaign effects. Here three-wave panel surveys and media content data for the Dutch national election campaigns of 2010 and 2012 are employed. Genuine VAA effects show up, especially on doubting voters, in addition to the spurious correlation resulting from common antecedent factors. Usually, VAAs will advise parties to users that these users are already likely to vote for, based on antecedent factors. With an abundance of antecedent factors in favour of a party, many voters vote for it even without VAA advice. Genuine VAA effects imply that VAAs make it less easy for political parties to neglect each other’s owned issues, because VAAs weigh issues equally for each party.