Toronto election sees free beer for voters

As far as voter-engagement incentives go, this one has people sitting up in their bar stools – so much so that it looks set to be copied elsewhere.

The ‘Vote for a Party’ incentive has been deemed a success in Toronto’s recent elections (Photo: Twitter)

In Toronto City Council’s recent elections, a programme to get young voters into the booths to act on their democratic right was launched – and it didn’t involve preaching about “doing one’s duty”.

Instead, it was the simple offer of a free beer as a reward.

Headed by creative agency Public Inc, three bars were enlisted to host post-vote parties in the city where young voters could show up, flash their electoral registration card and be presented with a specially-commissioned craft brew dubbed “Ballot”.

While it is impossible to tell the exact impact of the beer reward, voter turnout figures have shown a 10% jump on the last election in the district.

Phillip Haid, co-founder and CEO of Public Inc, told CoExist magazine, “What we’ve found is that so much of the messaging and campaigning trying to get young people to vote just doesn’t work”.

“We had to give them a reason to do it, and we thought, what’s more motivating than free beer? If everyone loves an incentive, what if we used a positive nudge, a reward, to get young people to vote?”

The thinking behind the incentive is that once people vote for the first time, they are much more likely to continue to do so.

“It’s not that they’re not civically engaged – they’re highly engaged. But they’re not choosing to do it through traditional forms of engagement like voting… that’s why we wanted to test another incentive,” said Haid.

Elsewhere, in Scotland’s recent independence referendum craft brewers Brewmeister tapped into the election fever by releasing their own Ballot Beers, with “Yes” and “No” brews launched so that beer fans may engage in the referendum in a jovial way.

Turnout figures for that referendum were the highest in UK voting history, which can only add to the idea that beer-fuelled democratic action is something to pursue.