Driving the Election Home
Car services are not just for a night out on the town, and Uber is now being used in “making voting cool again,” said Rich Masterson, CEO of VoterDrive.
VoterDrive, a campaign in partnership with Uber and APCO Worldwide, was used throughout election day to give free rides, up to $10 each way, to election polls.
The campaign was launched mid-September 2016 by APCO Worldwide to bring a modern day twist to voting. The campaign’s goal was to get people to vote because voting percentages have decreased within the past few elections and it was predicted that this year would be the lowest year in history.
According to the VoterDrive website, less than 60 percent of eligible voters actually vote when it comes down to election day. An estimated 1.8 million people in the U.S. do not vote because they simply do not have a way to get to the polls.
Offering free transportation to and from the polls was designed to increase the number of voters in the 2016 presidential election. After this campaign launched, other car services decided to get in on the fun and offer discounts or special offers to get voters to the polls.
Uber not only partnered with VoteDrive, but they also partnered with Google to have a special feature in their app that allowed voters to find their polling place with the touch of a button. They also offered a special discount for first time riders, giving them $20 off of their ride.
Lyft offered 45 percent off rides to the polls since this is the 45th presidential election. All previous Lyft users received the code for the discount, but there were a limited amount of discounts available. To pull in new users, Lyft gave $5 off to new riders.
Zipcar also offered something special for voters in the U.S. They had 7,000 vehicles reserved for people trying to get to polls with no hourly charge.
Election Day is a day for Americans to come together and exercise their right to vote, and thanks to car services like Uber getting to the polls was much easier.
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Nicole Pilbeam is a sophomore public relations and strategic communication major with minors in business, professional writing and mass communication at Olivet Nazarene University. In her free time Nicole loves to go on coffee runs with friends and watch Netflix with her dog.
