Hi!
As you all know, the elections are coming up. Before you can make a solid choice, it is always a good idea to take the time to read about all the different parties. However, this can take quite some time. Which is something students often do not have. To make things even more complicated, this year there are more parties to choose from than ever before!
So, here we are to make things a little bit easier for you. Or at least to try to make it easier. How can you best approach this, and how can you make the best choice? Most of you are probably familiar with the Stemwijzer, which offers you insight in the policies of the parties. But, there are plenty more options to help you make this decision.
First of all, there are the Stemchecker from Volkskrant and the Stemmentracker from ProDemo. These tools both give you insight into how the parties have voted in the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) during the last cabinet period (kabinet periode). This shows how the parties have acted instead of just what they are saying.
Secondly, there are tools especially for us as ‘young people’ and as students. The Jongeren Kieswijzer is an electoral guide focussed on young people, explaining things so we can easily understand them. Studentikeus is a guide that focuses on topics that are especially important for students. For example about the student loans and the BSA. These two guides can help you form a perspective based on topics that concern you.
A different kind of guide is the Burgeragenda. This guide offers you statements to which you have to reply. Instead of choosing to agree or disagree, you have to choose between different solutions. This tool makes you really think about the statements and topics and can give you valuable insights!
Finally, there are tools that are focussed on a specific perspective. For example, there are the Mentale Kieswijzer, the Duurzame Kieswijzer en the Technologie Kieswijzer. The Mentale Kieswijzer can help anyone to gain insights into what the parties think about topics around mental health. The Duurzame en Technologie Kieswijzer are both very interesting for us as designers from IDE and offer interesting perspectives on topics about our future.
With this short list, we hope to have given you some useful tools to help make this decision a little bit easier. Hopefully, you are now able to start thinking about your election vote. Good luck!
Groetjes IDE for Society