Wahl-O-Mat for Rhineland-Palatinate: take the test here

On March 14th it will be decided who will rule Rhineland-Palatinate for five years.

The Wahl-O-Mat gives the voters a decision-making aid in advance.

• The state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate will take place on March 14th.

• The Wahl-O-Mat helps users: inside, free of charge, to compare their views with the parties up for election.

• On February 10, the Wahl-O-Mat for the Rhineland-Palatinate election will be activated and also published here on

  Merkur.de

  .

Mainz - With 36.2 percent of the vote, the

SPD

prevailed against the

CDU

with 31.8 percent

in the last state election in 2016 in

Rhineland-Palatinate

.

Malu Dreyer

then ruled in a coalition with the

FDP

and the

Greens

, which recently held only a wafer-thin majority of a seat in the state parliament.

For the

state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2021,

observers expect a close race, as the CDU rose in favor of the voters.

As the survey by the

INSA Institute

of January 23 shows, the Union overtakes the incumbent Prime Minister's party with 3 percent (CDU: 33 percent, SPD: 30 percent).

It is all the more important for voters to be able to rely on a well-founded level of knowledge when making tight voting decisions.

With the

Wahl-O-Mat

for Rhineland-Palatinate, voters have the opportunity to find out whether the parties' programs match their ideas.

For the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate: You can find the Wahl-O-Mat here

The Wahl-O-Mat for the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate will be activated

from

February 10th

.

At this point you will then find the election tool with which you can find out about the upcoming state elections.

Wahl-O-Mat: How it works and history

Since the

Federal Agency for Civic Education launched

the Wahl-O-Mat in 2002, the election tool has been used over 82 million times in the run-up to elections.

For users, it's about finding out more about the parties' positions.

Which party is most likely to agree with your own political ideas.

Using

38 questions

, users give their opinion on the political issues of the respective election.

The possible answers are: “agree”, “neutral” and “disagree”.

Then the answers can be

weighted

differently so that the voters can emphasize their position on certain issues.

The Wahl-O-Mat then compares the answers with the parties' election manifestos.

The result finally appears in the form of a

bar chart

, which shows the agreement of the answers with the parties' election manifestos.

The voters can also see the detailed statements of the parties on the individual questions.

State election in Rhineland-Palatinate: How are the Wahl-O-Mat questions developed?

Behind the Wahl-O-Mat for Rhineland-Palatinate is the

Federal Agency for Civic Education

, which

develops the questions of application

in several workshops with

young voters

and political scientists.

In the first step, the 20 to 25 first-time voters draft

80 to 100 theses

based on the election programs

.

Political scientists help them with this.

The parties then receive the formulated theses and then decide how they feel about the individual theses.

All answers come directly from the parties that are running in the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate.

In the last step, the first-time voters, together with the political scientists, select the 38 most important questions that the users of the Wahl-O-Mats can answer.

The interactive tool for the 2021 state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate will then be available from February

10th

.

Wahl-O-Mat for Rhineland-Palatinate: The result serves as a basis for information

The Wahl-O-Mat will also provide users with

initial information

on the parties and the election

for the 2021 state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate

.

As the

Federal Agency for Civic Education

writes, voters should “in no case make their voting decision dependent solely on your Wahl-O-Mat result”.

The application serves as a

“starting point”

to obtain further information on the parties and their programs.

The results are not, however, a recommendation for an election.

State election in Rhineland-Palatinate: do the Greens cause a surprise?

In the previous state elections in 2016, the Greens barely made it into the state parliament.

With 5.3 percent they became the fifth strongest force and participated in the formation of the government.

With the Environment and Family Ministry, the Greens have been filling

two cabinet positions

since 2016

, but surveys show that the party can hope for greater success in the state elections in 2021.

As the

INSA Institute reported

on January 23, the Greens are

14 percent

in current polls from Rhineland-Palatinate

.

Almost three times the number of votes compared to the 2016 election!

It will also be exciting for the SPD: Since 1996, the Social Democrats have been the strongest party in Rhineland-Palatinate.

In the polls, however, the

CDU is ahead

.

The Ippen-Digital editorial network is a media partner of Wahl-O-Mat of the Federal

Agency

for Civic Education / bpb

(

jjf

)