Bosch Foundation: Boosting political participation in Europe through innovative voting tools and mechanisms

Today, not everyone exercises their right to vote especially young citizens who are not actively involved in the political life of their respective city/country. This is often due to several cross-cutting reasons.

To address the issue, the Robert Bosch Stiftung foundation funded a project called VOTO, a digital voting aid used in local elections that helps increase young voter turnout. It playfully provides information about parties and candidates and compares their policies with the user’s own stance. This breaks down voter participation barriers and highlights the relevance of local political issues. Candidates in local elections use VOTO to answer questions on political issues. Voters can then compare what candidates are saying with what they believe, giving them an easy tool to compare positions of political parties and candidates.
VOTO is supported by a community of dedicated individuals from civil society, academia, the media, and public institutions and is generating increased public interest in elections and local politics.

Through VOTO, the community is being built up, systematically evaluated, and improved together with people who are participating in local elections in several locations like Lower Saxony for example. Next, it will be gradually expanded to be used beyond local elections, e.g. for school or university elections. This shows how VOTO is promoting youth civic and political commitment while providing young citizens and politicians with a new tool to spur discussion and active political engagement.