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The voter information tools collectively known as "Voting Advice Applications" (VAAs) have emerged as particularly popular tools in the realm of E-participation. Today, VAAs are integral parts of election campaigns in many countries around the world as they routinely engage millions of citizens, in addition to political actors and the media. This contribution assesses the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the design and dissemination of VAAs, considering normative, ethical, and methodological challenges. The study provides a comprehensive overview of AI applications in VAA development, from formulating questions to disseminating information, and concludes by highlighting areas where AI can serve as a valuable tool for enhancing the positive impact of VAAs on democratic processes.

Abstract
More than a year after the introduction of vaccines against COVID-19, inoculation remains inconsistent and variable across countries. In this paper, we introduce a multi-item scale of COVID-19 related misinformation, skepticism, and conspiracy theories and investigate the effects of these beliefs on vaccine hesitancy. We report findings from a survey in Greece where participants were recruited via paid advertising on Facebook and the study sample was adjusted for demographic variables using a nationally representative reference sample. We show that the endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs is the primary factor driving vaccine hesitancy, far exceeding the effect of all other demographic and attitudinal variables, including health status. Furthermore, a pre-registered randomized survey experiment showed that the effect cannot be attributed to respondents' exposure to the COVID-19 conspiracy theory questions of the survey. The paper concludes by discussing potential public policy implications for combating misinformation and promoting health literacy among social media users.

AbstractPublic opinion on COVID‐19 provides new empirical evidence for the debate on the ideological contours of conspiracy theories. I report findings from a web survey in Greece where participants were recruited via paid advertising on Facebook and the study sample was adjusted for age, gender, education, domicile, and region of residence using a nationally representative reference sample. I find that beliefs about conspiracy theories are more correlated than the values associated with established political ideologies, and that conspiracy beliefs and scepticism about the pandemic are best explained by belief in unrelated political and medical conspiracy theories. No other demographic or attitudinal variable has such a strong influence, and the results are robust to different statistical specifications. In comparison, the effect of ideology measured by left‐right self‐placement is rather negligible and further moderated by trust in government. The results have implications for the strategies aimed at fighting disinformation during public health emergencies.

Η παρούσα εργασία αποτελεί μια πρώτη προσέγγιση των αποτελεσμάτων μιας έρευνας σχετικά με την απήχηση που βρίσκουν οι θεωρίες συνωμοσίας στους χρήστες των μέσων κοινωνικής δικτύωσης στην Ελλάδα. Πρόκειται για μία διαδικτυακή έρευνα με δομημένο ερωτηματολόγιο, στην οποία οι συμμετέχοντες κλήθηκαν να λάβουν μέρος μέσω ανακοινώσεων και καταχωρήσεων σε μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης. Τα δεδομένα σταθμίστηκαν βάσει μιας τηλεφωνικής έρευνας που πραγματοποιήθηκε σε αντιπροσωπευτικό δείγμα του πληθυσμού. Τα αποτελέσματα δείχνουν πως ο κατεξοχήν ερμηνευτικός παράγοντας των θεωριών συνωμοσίας για τον νέο κορωνοϊό είναι ο βαθμός αποδοχής θεωριών συνωμοσίας που αφορούν εντελώς διαφορετικά θέματα (π.χ. την κρίση της ελληνικής οικονομίας). Τα αποτελέσματα συγκλίνουν στο ότι οι πεποιθήσεις γύρω από τις θεωρίες συνωμοσίας οφείλονται σε βαθύτερα ψυχολογικά αίτια, με σαφείς συνέπειες ως προς τη χάραξη πολιτικών ενάντια στην παραπληροφόρηση.

Abstract
A new aspect of electoral campaigns in Europe, and increasingly elsewhere as well, has been the proliferation of the online voter information tools, widely known in the political science community as Voting Advice Applications (VAAs). By accessing VAAs, users are provided with information about the degree of congruence between their policy preferences and those of different parties or candidates. Although the exact mechanisms have not been rigorously investigated, a series of studies across European countries, such as Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have demonstrated a link between the use of VAAs and electoral turnout. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this growing literature by analyzing previously untapped data from Greece, extending the empirical literature to a country where VAA effects have not been investigated before. The analysis indicates that the effect of VAAs in Greece is marginal to non-existent while there seems to be no evidence of the hypothesized information mechanism which purportedly drives such effects. The paper concludes with suggestions that future studies of VAA effects on turnout can address in their design.

The Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) data are the most popular source for parties' positions on the left–right and other ideological and policy dimensions. Over the past few years, several researchers have identified various methodological problems in the CMP data, but third-party users rarely acknowledge them. This article classifies the problems associated with the CMP into four areas: (1) theoretical underpinnings of the coding scheme; (2) document selection; (3) coding reliability; and (4) scaling. The article reviews each area systematically and concludes with a set of recommendations regarding the use of the CMP data.

The Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) data are the most popular source for parties' positions on the left-right and other ideological and policy dimensions. Over the past few years, several researchers have identified various methodological problems in the CMP data, but third-party users rarely acknowledge them. This article classifies the problems associated with the CMP into four areas: (1) theoretical underpinnings of the coding scheme; (2) document selection; (3) coding reliability; and (4) scaling. The article reviews each area systematically and concludes with a set of recommendations regarding the use of the CMP data. Adapted from the source document.

The past few years have seen the advent and proliferation of Voting Advice (or Aid) Applications (VAAs), which offer voting advice on the basis of calculating the ideological congruence between citizens and political actors. Although VAA data have often been used to test many empirical questions regarding voting behaviour and political participation, we know little about the approaches used by VAAs to estimate the positions of political parties. This article presents the most common aspects of the VAA approach and examines some methodological issues regarding the phrasing of statements, the format of response scales, the reliability of coding statements into response scales and the reliability and validity of scaling items into dimensions. The article argues that VAAs have a lot of potential but there is also much space for methodological improvements, and therefore concludes with some recommendations for designing VAAs. Adapted from the source document.

The primary goal of voting advice applications (VAAs) is to calculate the match between voters' and parties' (or candidates) policy preferences. In order to do so, it is necessary for VAAs to estimate the positions of political parties. In many respects this is a daunting task given that all the commonly used methods for doing so have considerable drawbacks. Most VAAs use a combination of two methods, namely questionnaires sent to parties and expert coding based on party manifestos. The paper will outline the existing approaches in terms of validity and reliability and will propose some improvements in the form of a formal approach to expert coding over multiple rounds with anonymous feedback. The paper will present examples of the advantages of this method using evidence from Choose4Greece, a VAA launched for the May and June 2012 parliamentary elections in Greece.