MILWAUKEE — Traffic might be congested on Election Day with people rushing to get their votes in on time before polls close at 8p.m. but multiple organizations say they will drive you to go vote for free.
Non-for-profit organization Souls to the Polls plans to take people who haven’t voted yet straight from their homes to their voting station. Kiana Stockwell is a communications consultant with the organization and says so far, more than 300 people have signed up to be a volunteers of the Rides to the Polls program.
“We help senior citizens, voters with disabilities, folks that might not have access to transportation, and anybody else who is looking for a ride to go vote,” said Stockwell. “We’re also calling registered voters to see they have voted yet, just to make sure that be get as many people out to the voting booth come Election Day.”
Stockwell says within Souls to the Polls own data, rides for early in-person voting shot up more than 400% compared to the last presidential election in 2020.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission reported on Friday that more than 850,000 in-person absentee ballots had been submitted and more than 645,000 mail-in absentee ballots have been requested, and almost 538,000 have been returned.
Outside of non-for-profit organizations, Lime transportation announced it’s campaign, “Lime to the Polls” in an effort to get it’s users across Milwaukee to ride scooters to and back from voting. Company spokesperson Jacob Tugendrajch says it has launched the campaign in multiple cities across the United States.
“We started this program back in 2020, and we were really blown away by the response,” said Tugendrajch. “Our greater mission is to always try and break down barriers to lack of access to transportation and with ‘Lime to the Polls,’ we’re doing that in a way that breaks down barriers to participating in democracy, to getting out their and to cast your vote.”
Voting on Election Day in Wisconsin begins at 7:00a.m. and ends at 8:00p.m.
