Party-Check
What is Party-Check?
Party-Check.org is an online voting guide that was first developed as an alternative to the Wahl-O-Mat for the 2024 European Parliament elections and later expanded for the 2025 federal elections. After users answer approximately 15–20 questions, the survey calculates how closely users’ views align with those of the various parties. Party-Check is available at party-check.org. A separate Party-Check is currently being developed for each of the 2026 state elections in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Berlin, and Saxony-Anhalt.
Who makes Party-Check?
The Party-Check project is led by Dr. Jan Philipp Thomeczek at the University of Potsdam. For each election, there are various collaborations with colleagues from other universities.
Where do the parties' positions come from?
The parties’ positions are based on surveys done by political science experts. For the European Parliament elections, for example, this was the “GEPARTEE” survey; the data from this survey is freely available here. For the federal elections, the party positions were collected via the 2025 “Open Expert Survey” (OES): oes25.de. For state elections, party positions have been used since 2024 through the “Länder Expert Survey” (LES) project; the data collected so far can be found here. The median of the ratings is used to determine the party positions.
Why aren't all the parties running in the election included in Party-Check?
Party-Check does not use positions stated by the parties themselves; instead, they are derived from expert assessments. For this reason, the Party-Check is limited to parties that have a realistic chance of winning seats in the respective parliament. We therefore see ourselves as a complementary resource to other voting guides, such as the Wahl-O-Mat, which, for example, surveys all parties directly. These are thus two different approaches and perspectives that complement one another.
How does the left-right classification of political parties work?
The possible positions of each Party-Check question are classified as either right-wing or left-wing. From a mathematical standpoint, the mean of the right-wing positions is calculated. Therefore, the left-wing position score is inverted beforehand. Please note that not all questions can be grouped into left-wing and right-wing categories (see the next point).
You can find an overview of how the questions are categorized by topic and the parties' positions here.
Where can I find the party positions and issue classifications for current tools?
Party positions, themes and left-right assignments for all items per election can be found here.
How is the result calculated?
The result shows your percentage match with each party based on your stance on the statements provided. A similar method of presenting results is also used, for example, by the “Wahl-O-Mat” from the Federal Agency for Civic Education. For each question, you can choose from response categories ranging from 1 to 20. The result represents the percentage of the maximum alignment you can achieve with a party.
For example, if a party was assigned a value of 5 for all questions and you also selected a value of 5 for all questions, the match would be 100%. The match, based on the so-called Proximity Model, is calculated symmetrically. A 0% match would only be achieved if you and the party each selected the opposite values—that is, 1 and 20. This means that, based on your response pattern and that of the party, you generally cannot achieve a 0% match.
For weighting purposes, the calculation for each question is multiplied by a factor. This factor is 0.5 for “Less important,” 1 for “Moderate,” and 2 for “More important.”
Can I complete the Party-Check without saving my data?
In order to calculate the results, your responses must be temporarily stored. However, you can delete the responses you provided on the results screen.
Your participation in the survey and your consent to the use of your data as described above are voluntary. You may stop the survey at any time. You can also delete the information you have provided at any time during the survey by clicking the three dots in the upper right corner and selecting “Clear all responses.” Since no personal data such as names or email addresses is collected, the General Data Protection Regulation does not apply.
Have any publications been released that include this data?
Analyses are conducted on an ongoing basis; depending on the peer-review process, publication may take some time. The following publications containing background information have already been published:
2024 European Elections
Thomeczek, J. Philipp, L. Constantin Wurthmann, und Christian Stecker. 2025. „Studying Party-Voter Congruence in the European Elections 2024: Introducing a New Dataset on German Voter Positions from the VAA ‘Europartycheck’“. European Union Politics. Abrufbar unter:10.1177/14651165251395306.
Thomeczek, J. Philipp, L. Constantin Wurthmann, und Christian Stecker. 2024. „Die Parteienlandschaft zur Europawahl 2024“. DVPW Blog. Abrufbar unter https://www.dvpw.de/blog/die-parteienlandschaft-zur-europawahl-2024-ein-beitrag-von-jan-philipp-thomeczek-l-constantin-wurthmann-christian-stecker
2024 State Elections
Thomeczek, J. Philipp. 2024. „Wo stehen die Parteien in Thüringen und Sachsen?“ Regierungsforschung. Abrufbar unter https://regierungsforschung.de/wo-stehen-die-parteien-in-thueringen-und-sachsen/
2025 Federal Election
Thomeczek, Jan Philipp. 2025. „Überlappende Potenziale und Zweitpräferenzen bei der Bundestagswahl 2025“. Regierungsforschung. Abrufbar unter https://regierungsforschung.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20022025_regierungsforschung.de_Thomeczek_Bundestagswahl.pdf.