By Emily Gibbs, Senior Manager of Social Impact Programs

We teamed up with When We All Vote and other national and local voting partners to ease transportation barriers and increase voter turnout by launching a three-part campaign, Lime To The Polls: Change What Matters To You.

It’s official, we are 100 days out from the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S. This fall, a lot is at stake, including all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 35 out of 100 Senators, and many elected officials in local and state government. Reliable and affordable transportation is one of the many barriers voters face in the U.S. In fact, 29% of young voters who were registered to vote but did not vote in the 2016 presidential election cited that not having a ride to the polls was a factor in why they did not cast their ballot.¹

At Lime, we believe that a lack of access to reliable transportation should never be a reason not to vote. Ever.

This year, for the first time, Lime to the Polls will expand to become an integrated months-long campaign aimed at increasing awareness and action around the midterm election. We’ve partnered nationally with When We All Vote, National Voter Registration Day, Vote Early Day, VoteRiders, HeadCount, and BallotReady to provide the most substantial array of voting access and educational tools ever made available by a micromobility company. Lime also plans to partner with dozens of local organizations to ensure Lime to the Polls benefits from grassroots advocacy as well as national coordination.

Our campaign this year has three key touch points for riders and staff. First, we will make sure our riders are registered to vote by sending out our very own registration portal so riders can verify and update their voter registration or register to vote for the first time. The second touch point will be helping our riders make a plan to vote by providing key resources to learn about the issues they care about, find their polling place, and get prepared to cast their ballot. And finally, we will provide free rides to and from polling sites for early voting and on Election Day for all riders in the U.S. Our product team is even looking into making developments like adding polling sites to our app.

When our partners ask their voters a key question, “How are you getting to the polls this year?” Lime can and will be part of the response and voter journey.

“Ever since we first launched Lime to the Polls in 2018, we’ve made a conscious effort to continue growing and expanding this important initiative and 2022 will be its biggest year yet. This campaign will now be a comprehensive, multipronged effort to help residents of the cities we serve engage with American democracy on their own terms. We’ll help people get registered to vote and ensure they know what and who are on the ballot and when. Our incredible partner organizations will reach even more people through our platform, expanding their reach and linking people who may feel shut out of the election process with the vital resources they need to participate. We are investing unprecedented time and resources in Lime to the Polls because Americans face unprecedented choices and we want to help,” said Lime CEO Wayne Ting.

We first offered a Lime to the Polls promo code in the United States in 2018 and did so again in 2020. Leading up to and on Election Day 2020, Lime to the Polls helped thousands of US riders with a free, safe, and sustainable way to get to and from casting their ballots. Lime to the Polls made up an estimated 20% of all US trips on Election Day 2020. We continued its push to help people vote in 2021 and thousands more riders took advantage to get to their local election polling places across the country. We have also taken Lime to the Polls global, starting with bringing the initiative to Canada for the first time in September of 2021 and expanding to France and London as well since then. We are proud to have been a pioneer in terms of micromobility companies helping drive voter participation and views its 2022 campaign as a culmination of years of building on the idea of Lime to the Polls.

I’ve worked in advocacy and voter engagement for half of a decade and I am thrilled to now be serving at a company like Lime where the team is dedicated to making voting a part of our company culture.

¹ “The Ride to Vote,” Tuft University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), 2019