With disruptions to mail voting systems and other election-related problems potentially sidelining some voters this election season, Lyft is offering, well, a lift!
For the sixth straight election season, the ride-hailing company’s “Lyft Up Voting Access Program” will offer voters discounted rides to polling places on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3.
Lyft’s program, which began in 2014, is available to anyone across the United States—from the streets of Manhattan to the wilds of Alaska—who enters the public discount code “VOTE26” to book a ride before November 3. That will give users a 50% discount, or up to $10, on a ride to their polling place.
The program also partners with various nonprofits and civic organizations to help increase access to voting booths, a list that includes the League of Women Voters, National Council on Aging, National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, and Students Learn Students Vote Coalition.
“Voting access is and has been a priority of Lyft for more than a decade,” says Christine Campigotto, Lyft’s senior director of policy impact and operations. “We want to make sure that transportation is not a barrier to voting for anyone.”
Campigotto says that the program was designed from the get-go to be open to anyone. Voters, no matter where they live or their partisan leanings, can take advantage of it.
But it may be particularly useful to voters who, traditionally, have had a more difficult time getting to their polling places, such as older individuals and students. The whole point, she says, is to ensure that transportation isn’t the thing that stops votes from being cast.
“There’s research that shows voters with access to a car are 30% more likely to vote,” Campigotto says. “So we know that transportation is strongly correlated with voting.”
Campigotto will also be at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York on Wednesday, participating in a session about what business leaders can be doing to meet the political moment during this year’s midterm elections.
