In many democratic countries, general elections are often accompanied by a voting advice application. Services like these help citizens getting to know the parties or candidates by presenting a carefully chosen collection of political statements. The users and the parties both take position to these statements. Based on this, voters can quickly get a comparison between their own opinions and the positions of the parties. In Germany, this service is implemented by the Federal Agency for Civic Education and is called "Wahl-O-Mat". In the Netherlands this concept is called "Kieskompas". Software like this has developed in the early 2000s and evolved ever since. Running such a project offers great value to citizens, the political system and our democracy. It is also very expensive. Implementing an election compass is not only time consuming, but also requires great technical knowledge. Usually, there is no election compass for smaller elections, because hiring software developers is simply out of budget. 

OpenElectionCompass offers a free alternative – free as in free speech as well as in free beer. The requirements for a voting advice application are very similar, be it for a small or a national election, for an election in Berlin or an election in Brussels. OpenElectionCompass aims to provide a free solution, simple to configure, customize and deploy. By continuously improving our project, we have an advantage over agencies, doing this only every few years. And by not developing behind closed doors, we are transparent and open for everyone.

Zero Coding – We have a nice editors for non-technical folks. No need to write any code.
Easy to use – Crafted to be simple for everyone, not just programmers.
Multilingual – Provide the same election compass in multiple languages to engage a bigger audience.
Multiple algorithms – Choose your matching algorithm and answer style – three buttons or maybe five?
Helpful guides – Our technical and organisational guides will help you achieve the best results.
Single File Deployment – The simplest setup consists of a single HTML file. No PHP or Node.js.
Responsive Design – Use it comfortably on any device and any screen – big or small.
Accessibility matters – Designed with screen readers and keyboard navigation in mind.
Balanced Design – As little interface as possible, as much as needed and a little extra to make it fun.
Modern architecture – Built with technologies developers love – Vue.js, SASS, Nuxt.js, GitHub, Jest.
Kiosk Mode – Set up a terminal in a public place. Sessions will be destroyed automatically.

Growth
This project has great potential. Both in value for our democracy, as well as in scale. These days, many democracies suffer from a lack of participation – especially in local elections. Our democracies certainly are not perfect, but that makes it even more important, to get as many people to cast their vote, as possible. This project startet in a small town in Lüdenscheid, Germany, but it was always intended to become much bigger. Internationalization was a feature from the start. Help us grow, and expand to our full potential.

Continuous Development
The most important features are there and yet, there is so much more to come. Small features, like more languages, even better accessibility, more customisability. Big features, like peer-to-peer mode, partizipation, Software-as-a-Service (for free, of course) and APIs for science. We have only just begun.

Infrastructure
Running a project like this (especially with our roadmap in mind) is a bit like renting a flat. At the end of the month, we need to pay the bills – for servers, domains, e-mail and so on. Starting is cheap, but these costs will slowly continue to grow.

Promotion
Expanding this project will need a small promotional effort. In the beginning, this will be trying to get into conventions as a speaker, presenting the project, etc. Since the target audience are democracy enthusiasts and developers, this is a minor point. But one day, we might help groups with marketing materials and cheap (or free?) rental of tents, terminals, banners and such to run help promote their election compass.

Maintenance
Fixing bugs, improving small details, keeping the code base up to date, answering tickets – all this takes time. And while these as well as the main development is done by volunteers, it's good to know that there is a strong community backing us.