Three students of Political Science at the University of Bremen created a competition called “2013 Election Prize” designed to mobilize people in Lower Saxony and Bremen to vote in the recent general election (for details see the article from 17.09.2013). “Instead of focusing on the election campaigns of the political parties, our idea was to take a non-partisan approach in the run up to the 2013 general election.” The students, Steven Tümler, Timo Albeshausen and Fabian Wesselmann, say the idea behind the competition was to encourage more active participation in democracy and mobilize voters by creating a competition between the election districts in Bremen and Lower Saxony for the highest voter turnout.
According to preliminary results, the winner of the 2013 Election Prize is constituency number 36, Harburg, where 78 percent of the people actually entitled to vote went to the polls on Election Day. As many people had predicted, the election district of Harburg returned the highest number of voters in the federal states of Bremen and Lower Saxony. In this first competition for the highest voter participation in Bremen and Lower Saxony, election district 47, Hannover-Land II, came second with a voter turnout of 75.9 percent, just in front of election district 43 Hannover-Land I in third place with 75.8 percent. Whereas Harburg actually managed to increase participation by 0.5 percent compared with 2009, the quota in Hannover-Land II sank by 0.6 percent. With voter participation of 71.9 percent, a distinct drop compared with 2009, the election district 54, Bremen I, only managed place 22. Bottom-paced among the 32 election districts in Lower Saxony and Bremen was once again district 55, Bremen II – Bremerhaven, where only 65.3 percent of the voting population bothered to exercise their voting rights.
The prize giving ceremony will be held at the end of October/beginning of November.
You can find details of the competition and final results under www.wahlpreis2013.de
Contact:
Universität Bremen
Project team „WahlPreis2013“
Phone: +49 172-971 5757
email: mailprotect me ?!wahlpreisprotect me ?!.de
