Mannheim Data Scientist Thilo Dieing Co-Develops ‘Voto’ Website to Aid Undecided Voters in Making Informed Choices

Mannheim residents aged 16 and over who are eligible to vote can choose between 13 different parties and initiatives in the local elections on June 9. These parties and initiatives offer a variety of answers to current local political questions. For example, should the city library be relocated to N2? Or should the local council stick to the renovation of the National Theater despite rising costs? Anyone who does not yet have answers to these questions can use the new online tool Voto. The tool classifies the substantive positions of the candidates standing for election and helps you compare them with your own viewpoints.

The Germany-wide election assistance project is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Christian Stecker from the Technical University of Darmstadt and Thilo Dieing from the University of Mannheim. Voto reflects political positions not only from the groups running for election in Mannheim, but also from those in thirty other municipalities across Germany, including Konstanz, Mainz and Halle.

“Our goal was to introduce people who have little time to politics and motivate them to vote,” explains Dieing, who works as a research assistant at Prof. Dr. Heiner Stuckenschmidt’s Chair of Artificial Intelligence. This should strengthen local democracy. “Of course, the tool is no substitute for thorough political analysis, but it offers a good starting point,” says the data scientist. 

The tool, which is now being offered in Mannheim for the second time after 2019, includes 33 theses on various urban policy topics such as transport transition, law and security, immigration or housing.