Voting Freebies Bring Austinites Together for Highly Anticipated Election

By Natasha Day

AUSTIN –– Perform your civic duty and get a free slice of pizza? Austinites were happy to take part in a city wide voting effort to get people to the poles and to local eateries.

Both Home Slice Pizza locations and all six of The Soup Peddler locations offered free food when patrons showed their “I Voted” sticker.

“I went to Soup Peddler, I went to Home Slice and I went to a taco truck, Paprika, for a free taco,” said Mijkal Jaguar, of East Austin.

Places to get discounts and free food were advertised on various social media platforms like Instagrams’ “When When What Austin” page, Facebook posts and good ol’ fashion word of mouth.

Not only did the freebies get people out to the poles, they’ve helped drive more money into local businesses.

The Soup Peddler offered a free eight ounce soup to anyone who showed their sticker from the first day of early voting until election day. “We’ve given away over 4,000 cups of free soup, the word of mouth about it has definitely gotten us some new customers,” said Darby Kendall, social media director for The Soup Peddler.

Home Slice saw a surge in their already busy restaurant due to the voting freebies, they offered one free slice of pizza when customers showed their voting sticker. “It was absolutely busier,” said office administrator Melanie Cox,“There was a line to the road everyday.”

Home Slices’ instagram page reported that they gave out over 18,000 free slices for voting patrons.

Home Slice Pizza on North Loop Blvd. Customers placed their “I voted” stickers on their slice window.

Despite the enthusiasm that came with free pizza and soup, there were still people who chose not to cast a ballot.

“The division between people is getting stronger. Which makes me sad,” said Amy Berg, long-time Austinite who opted out of voting.

“ I feel social media is growing more and more traction in affecting divisness in elections.”

The Texas Tribune reported that over half of the 17 million registered voters in Texas did cast ballots in the 2020 election, 6.6% more than in 2016.

“I was surprised to see the growth in this concept. I mean having any kind of platform to make incentives for change is always good. I do think it worked. Especially for the younger generations I noticed,” said Berg.

University of Texas students would come in groups to get slices and soup, some even going to multiple locations to take advantage of the freebies.

“I think that the students thought it was a cool thing to take advantage of.” said Cox

“I also did pick up another voting sticker on the ground, I was talking to somebody who took three stickers,” said Jaguar, “I don’t really know if it worked to motivate people, but I think it was a really good show of community support,