Unpaking the Impact of Voting Advice Applications on Pre-Voters' Political Attitudes

The Test électoral is a Voting Advice Application (VAA) that provides cittizens with personalized information about their ideological profile by comparing their positions on a selection of political issues with those of political parties. In practice, users fill in an online survey according to their opinions on a set of issues. By comparing their position with those of political parties, the applications generate voting advice. Although one of the purposes of VAAs is to engage young individuals and those who effects of VAAs on young people, particularly research that addresses political inequalitites. Our research focuses on pre-voters, i.e., individuals aged between 16 and 18, as we acknowlegde that this is a key time to the development of political attitudes. Therefore, we form three resaerch questions.

The first one constitutes the lead research question of the present study: To what extent does a VAA have an impact on pre-voters' political efficacy and trust? (RQ1) We also wonder whether VAA effects last, and whether the app succeeds in addressing the inequalities in political resources based on individuals' socio-economic status (SES). Hence, we ask the following two sub-questions: To what extent does a VAA have a lasting impact on pre-voters' political efficacy and trust? (RQ2), and to what extent is there a difference in VAA effect based on SES ? (RQ3).