With four weeks to go until the election, political research bureau ProDemos has launched its online Stemwijzer tool to help voters navigate the cluttered political landscape on October 29.

The Stemwijzer has become a staple of recent campaigns as the number of parties has increased in recent years, with 15 winning seats at the last election and a similar number likely to pass the 0.67% threshold this time.

It boils down the thousands of pages of manifestos to 30 simple statements on key issues such as migration, housing and welfare spending, and invites voters to state whether they agree or disagree.

Some of the issues are familiar from election debates: should mortgage interest tax relief be scrapped, or defence spending fixed by law at 3.5% of GDP? Others tackle issues that impact on people’s personal finances, such as whether higher earners should receive less child support.

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The answers are then compared with the party manifestos to produce a percentage score measuring how close each party is to one’s own views.

Other organisations have devised their own voting tools, such as the Kieswijzer, developed by Trouw newspaper together with political scientists, and the Volkskrant’s Stemchecker.

Popular tools

They have proved popular with voters: at the last election the Kieswijzer and Stemwijzer were filled in 12 million times, more than the number of votes cast in the election – although some users completed the surveys multiple times or were ineligible to vote.

Anne Valkering of ProDemos said compiling the tool had been a challenge after the cabinet collapsed in June, with most parties only publishing their manifestos after returning from the summer break in September. “But we managed to do it at the last minute.”

Party leaders used the launch to point out where they differed from other parties, including those on the same side of the political spectrum, which will shape the negotiations for the next government.

The right-wing liberal VVD has declared mortgage interest relief a red-line issue, while the CDA has said for the first time it is in favour of gradually phasing out the tax break for home-owners. Other parties, including GroenLinks-PvdA, also want to scrap it, while the PVV, which is leading in the polls, insists it should be retained.

Christian Democrat (CDA) leader Henri Bontenbal said voters needed to bear in mind that parties behave differently during the election campaign than during the negotiations to form the next government.

Bontenbal said: “Most parties are professional enough to know that after the election they have to make compromises. There’s always a cooling-off period in the days after the coalition and then we get into the formation, which is a whole new phase.”

JA21 closest to VVD

Joost Eerdmans of the hardline right-wing JA21, said the Stemwijzer showed his party agreeing with the liberal VVD on more than 90% of issues – more than the populist far-right PVV, which like JA21 wants to shut the borders to asylum seekers.

“We have a lot in common on economic policy, but we disagree on migration,” he said. “We want to get asylum down to zero eventually, while they’re much milder. On the other hand, the PVV has moved to the left on economics.“

Habtamu de Hoop of GroenLinks-PvdA said it helped voters pinpoint where the real choices lay. “You can see for example that we think differently from the CDA and VVD about housing and healthcare and it’s important for voters to see that.”

Volt leader Laurens Dassen managed only an 80% match with his nearest ally, the animal rights’ party PvdD. “We’re a unifying party, but we’re also a party that wants reform and renewal,” he said. “I get the feeling that some parties in The Hague are scared of change.”

The orthodox Christian SGP, which has three seats in parliament, has a small but solid voter base in the Bible Belt, but leader Chris Stoffer said the Stemwijzer was a valuable guide for the majority of voters who make up their minds during the campaign

”Our loyal voters might not need it, but it’s important in a democracy that people use these tools and peruse the manifestos before they decide how to vote.”