Online voting aides get thousands of hits

It seems that many Dutch voters are making a last minute decision on who to vote for in the municipal elections on Wednesday. Online voting aides like StemWijzer and Kieskompas received tens of thousands of visitors since Tuesday, NOS reports.

MijnStem, which has questionnaires pointing voters towards parties that most agree with their beliefs for 64 municipalities, had a peak of 50 thousand visitors at once on Tuesday evening, spokesperson Nicolette Ouwerling said to NOS. "This morning at 8:30 a.. there were also 20 thousand people completing the voting aide at once. They were probably people on their way to work."

Anita de Jong of organization Promedos, who is behind StemWijzer (44 municipalities), told the broadcaster that Tuesday was "really bizarrely busy". "170 thousand people on the site on one day, that's really gigantic." On Monday the site had around 70 thousand visitors. "Even now we're seeing thousands per hour."

Kieskompas (33 municipalities) is already at more visitors than in the previous municipal elections. "Yesterday we had more than 75 thousand visitors on one day and today we are expected to add up to half a million", spokesperson Willem Blanken said.

KiesWijzer, from publishers De Persgroep, told NOS that they're noticing an increase but won't share the figures with other media.