Over a quarter of a million instances of local-o-mat have been utilized
The Lokal-o-Mat, a digital tool designed to provide tailored information about local politics, has been available for over two weeks to help voters form opinions for the upcoming local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, scheduled for September 2025.
Developed by the Wahl-O-Mat research team at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, the Lokal-o-Mat can be accessed at lokal-o-mat.de until election day. The tool is available for use in populous cities like Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Cologne, and Münster, as well as smaller municipalities, such as Haan, Coesfeld, and Witten.
Prof. Stefan Marschall, the project leader of the Lokal-o-Mat, expressed satisfaction with the number of people the tool has reached. In Coesfeld, almost a quarter of all eligible voters have used the Lokal-o-Mat, and in Witten, more than every tenth eligible voter has taken advantage of the service.
The goal of the Lokal-o-Mat is to encourage the population to engage with the upcoming local election. It allows users to compare their opinions with the positions of the parties and voter groups standing for election. The Lokal-o-Mat compares users' political positions with those of the participating parties and voter groups based on 30 communal political theses.
Jonas Bongartz, the project coordinator of the Lokal-o-Mat, stated that interest in the tool is high, with a great demand for information everywhere. The Landeszentrale für politische Bildung NRW provided support for the development of the Lokal-o-Mat.
The Lokal-o-Mat has been well-received in smaller municipalities, with high usage rates. As of now, more than 250,000 people have used the Lokal-o-Mat to form their opinions. However, the search results do not provide specific data on the top 3 cities in North Rhine-Westphalia with the highest number of Lokal-o-Mat users by September 8, 2025.
Many voters in North Rhine-Westphalia are currently undecided about the local elections. The Lokal-o-Mat aims to help these voters make informed decisions by providing personalised information about the parties and voter groups standing for election. With the election day fast approaching, the Lokal-o-Mat continues to be a valuable resource for voters seeking to understand the political landscape in their local area.
