Free beer and sausages: Duisburgmobilized voters for the Bundestag election!

Free beer and sausages: Duisburgmobilized voters for the Bundestag election!

On February 15, 2025, an unconventional action for mobilizing voters will be carried out in Duisburg on the occasion of the upcoming Bundestag election. A postal voting point was set up in front of the Duisburg-Mitte district office, which will be open until 2 p.m. The special attraction of this initiative not only lies in the possibility of submitting his vote or collecting postal voting documents, but also in the tempting offer: voters receive free beer and sausages as an incentive to participate in the election. This campaign was initiated by the main committee of Duisburg Carnival, which reacts to the typical challenges of the voter composition in Duisburg, where the turnout has often been low in the past. In the Duisburg-Nord constituency in the 2021 Bundestag election, only 63.3 percent nationwide recorded the lowest turnout nationwide.

Already at the beginning of the campaign, at 10 a.m., around 60 people were in line. The atmosphere at the beer stand was exuberant, which also inspired the initiative. This unconventional mobilization strategy, which this time also includes alcohol in the form of beer, could be a crucial turn. In contrast to the European elections 2024, where there was only non -alcoholic beer and the interest of the voters remained low, Duisburg is now relating to a more appealing offer to motivate citizens to give up their vote.

The objective of the action

With this campaign, Duisburg not only wants to increase the turnout, but also create a social framework that attracts more people. In view of a participation of only 68.1 percent in the last election in 2021, which was significantly below the nationwide average of 76.6 percent, the initiative is quite urgently necessary.

Another incentive could result from the recent success in the 2024 European elections, where various actions led to an increase in the turnout from 50 percent to 53.6 percent. In the neighboring city of Essen, too, the turnout in the 2024 European election was 61.1 percent compared to 74.4 percent in the federal election 2021. These examples show how important creative approaches to voter mobilization are and how strongly the social element of a vote decision can affect citizens.