Campaigning in Germany

Unexpected visitors

“HELLO! I’m Cornelius Golembiewski from the CDU. Could I give you our manifesto and a leaflet about Johannes Selle, our local candidate?” The woman at the door beams: “We already voted by post, so don’t worry!” Mr Golembiewski wishes her a good day and pulls out his phone, opens an app called Connect17 and taps a smiley face. “When we started, we were the only party that did this,” he explains. Along with other young activists, he is plying the hilly streets of Jena, in the state of Thuringia, doing something new to continental Europe: door-to-door canvassing.

Elections here traditionally involve posters, street stalls and rallies, but not the doorstep campaigning common in America and Britain. Tighter privacy laws prevent parties from holding data on individuals. Continentals more often live in intercom-protected blocks of flats, increasing the time and effort needed to reach a voter’s front door. And electoral systems in...Continue reading

Souce: Europe http://ift.tt/2ws7pwr

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