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BERLIN — How do you get reluctant voters to the polls?
One German city thinks it has the answer: Give them free beer.
In an effort to combat low voter turnout in Duisburg, a city of about half a million people in western Germany’s populous Ruhr Valley, officials are teaming up with organizers of the local Carnival festival to offer a local pilsner to people who turn in their ballots early.
Ahead of the Feb. 23 election, they are using an unconventional campaign to raise awareness among portions of the electorate who typically don’t show up to the polls.
“What really gets people emotional? A local beer, the König Pilsener, has been brewed here in Duisburg since 1858, and it’s really more connected to this city than any other brand,” Martin Murrack, the city director, told POLITICO. “You really have to do things that are discussed very widely and very controversially.”
There are rules, of course: Anyone hoping to get one has to cast their vote between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Feb. 15, the Saturday a week before election day.
Once they’ve left the voting area, they’ll be offered their choice of beverage — a pilsner with or without alcohol, or a soft drink — as well as snacks and food like bratwurst.
‘Cheers to democracy’
In turning to pilsner — a hoppy, clear lager popular across the country — Duisburg is tapping into Germans’ deep love of beer.
Germans drank an average of 88 liters of beer in 2023. Though that amount has declined slightly in recent years, it remains higher than in all but two other European Union countries: the Czech Republic and Austria.
The idea for the so-called Bieraktion had been brewing [pun intended] for a while, Murrack said. He and others in the city’s election administration were looking for novel ways to reach voters who don’t read traditional media or pay close attention to the city’s information campaigns.
So far, it seems to be having the desired effect: “My boys are 15 and 17 and they said, ‘Dad, you’re on TikTok!’” Murrack said of the attention the city’s campaign is getting on social media. “The whole thing is really making waves and being discussed in the social classes that you would normally have trouble reaching.”
In Duisburg and across the country, the effort is making headlines: The German broadcaster MDR referred to it as “Prost (cheers) to democracy,” while the Bild newspaper called it a “beer booster.”
Glass half full
About 68 percent of the city’s eligible voters turned out in the last federal election in 2021 — roughly 8.5 percentage points lower than the national average. And one electoral district in Duisburg had the lowest turnout in the country, just 63 percent.
The city already tried luring voters to the polls with beer once before, with disappointing results. Ahead of last year’s European Parliament election, it offered a nonalcoholic beer to voters who turned in their ballots early — only to have very few people take that up. Although political parties have long plied supporters with beer on the campaign trail, the 2024 effort appeared to be the first time a major German city offered such a perk to voters.
Some residents were critical. “I don’t expect free beer from the city,” a Duisburger told MDR at the time. “I expect them to accomplish something.”
But Murrack is approaching the upcoming campaign with a glass-half-full attitude. The city is hosting the event in the center of town rather than in a suburb as it had previously, offering alcoholic beer in addition to nonalcoholic beer, and drafting the local Carnival committee to collaborate on the event. This year, carnival celebrations will begin Feb. 27 in the region.
Because people can’t register in advance, the city doesn’t know how many people will actually show up on Feb. 15. Murrack said he’d consider it a success if they draw 100 or 150 people — but hopes the attention it’s getting and the overlap with Carnival will bring more interest than the previous year.
“If there’s a big rush, we’ll be prepared,” Murrack said. “We currently have two polling stations in the building, but we can expand them.”
“There will be no shortage of drinks,” the brewery assured him, he said.
