The EU Election and the Wahl-O-Mat

Around 16 years ago in Germany.....some computer app folks and political science folks sat down and developed this simple question and answer app for people who were confused about 'who' to vote for (in terms of political parties).

You see, in Germany, there's typically forty-plus political parties running.  There's the main six or seven parties, and then roughly thirty-to-forty additional parties.  The additional parties, for the simple discussion.....rarely come up but you might be a fringe kinda 'guy' and think that you need 'help'.

So there's forty-odd questions or priorities put out there by the political scientists, and they ask the parties on their position....either they agree or disagree, and 'how much' (they might to the utter extreme on asylum questions (in terms of accepting more) or the utter extreme (absolutely no more).

Having taken the Wahl-O-Mat test before, I will state that it's simple enough for a guy with a 8th-grade education to understand, and the questions are not 'tricky' or weird.  At the end, it'll ask you for up to eight party picks and measure your answers against their stance. 

In my case, using the 2017 Wahl-O-Mat.....I was told that the Pirate Party was around a 60-to-65 percent chance pick.  The Green Party....around five-to-seven percent chance. 

How many people use the Wahl-O-Mat?  Total unknown.  I have my doubts that in the past ten years.....maybe up to five percent of the adult population might have used it to 'grade' themselves on where they stand. 

Here in this EU election?  The Wahl-O-Mat has been discussed a good bit by journalists and hyped....perhaps hoping that it'll convince people to come out and vote.

The problem I see is that probably fifty percent of the German public has an extreme position in their mind on asylum and migration,  I even go and suspect that for each person who is extremely favorable on asylum....there's likely two Germans on the extreme side opposing this opinion.  If these folks regard this as the next important topic and biggest factor on the Wahl-O-Mat.....then it will lead each to the far extreme of the political spectrum for each group.  This is the type of divided society and vote that you'd probably like to avoid.