MonVoteÀMoi, the VoteMatch that helps the French to test their political preference

Should the French president give up his prerogatives on defence and foreign policy? Is a reducement of working hours indispensable to get more jobs? Should immigrants have the right to vote at local elections? Is nuclear energy needed to maintain a clear environment in France? Is it the role of the government to partly finance new mosques?

By answering 35 theses like these French voters could get a personal result whom to vote for on the presidential elections in April and May. MonVoteÀMoi, www.monvoteamoi.fr, was conceived after the successful format of the Dutch StemWijzer, owned by the IPP (Dutch Centre for Political Participation). By the end of January 2007 there was a first contact between IPP and Sitoyen.fr, a network of independent journalists, scientists and politicians based in Lyon; Sitoyen being a sequence of citoyen – civic – and site. The first week of March a two-days-workshop was held in Lyon with a French project team of Sitoyen and members of the Institute of Political Science (Sciences Po) of the University of Lyon, where, supervised by two IPP- project managers Jochum de Graaf and Jerome Scheltens the issues were discussed that should be in the French test. Some 75 theses were the result that was sent to the campaign teams of the twelve official candidates contesting the French presidency. On behalf of the answers 35 theses were selected to get into the final test. MonVoteÀMoi, meaning something like ‘give me my vote’ or ‘my own vote’, was put online on the 29 March. Up to the election day of the first round on 22 April more than 560.000 users tested their political preference. The test got publicity from several national and regional papers, from radio stations like RTL, from the newsshow of TF1 and was highly recommended by Yahoo.com and the influential network Netpolitique.net.

At the second round of the elections on 6 May, MonVoteÀMoi did appear in a new version. Out of the original list of theses the 20 most important theses were taken where the two remaining candidates, Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, had contradictory opinions on: the homo-marriage, the reduction of civil servants, the right to strike, a European referendum, a tax on the oil industry. Next to the two official candidates, the user could include in the result up to two other candidates (s)he may have wanted to vote for in the first round to compare the different points.

MonVoteÀmoi will also be used at the elections for the Assemblée Nationale, the French parliament on 10 and 17 June. There will be two versions with different theses, because of the French electoral system where in the first round about twelve parties are involved and in the second round only the parties that have more than 12,5% of the votes.

After the StemWijzer in the Netherlands (4.7 mln. users on the last parliamentary elections), Germany (5 mln. users on the last Bundestagelections), the Politarena (since 2003) in Switzerland and the Glasovoditel in Bulgaria (since 2005) the successful format has proven another time to be a perfect flexible tool that applies to any democratic election.

More information www.monvoteamoi.fr, www.votematch.net. Jochum de Graaf, project manager StemWijzer/VoteMatch j.degraaf@stemwijzer.nl.

Jochum de Graaf, IPP (Dutch Centre for Political Participation)