Overview

• Lokal‑o‑Mat is now live for ten cities, including Aachen, Köln, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Münster and Krefeld, in a project by Heinrich‑Heine‑Universität Düsseldorf with the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung NRW.
• Kommunalwahl‑Navi, developed by the NRW School of Governance and Universität Münster, has been online since Aug. 15 for eight large cities such as Essen, Bochum, Köln, Münster, Bielefeld and Paderborn.
• Each tool presents about 30 to 35 local policy theses for users to agree, disagree or stay neutral, allows optional weighting and returns a percentage alignment with participating parties rather than a recommendation.
• Düsseldorf’s youth‑focused Düssel‑O‑Mat was created with the Jugendring Düsseldorf and the Voto team using 31 theses, while additional city tools include Bonn’s bonn‑o‑mat, Dortmund’s Wahl Buddy and Solingen’s Sol‑O‑Mat.
• Project leads cite research indicating that users of such aids are better informed and more likely to vote as NRW residents prepare to choose local councils and mayors on Sept. 14.