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Uber Will Drive You to the Polls for Free on Election Day
- sjroot 8y agoSeems like the only logical way to compete with Lyft’s offering half off trips (and free rides for underserved populations). In case you haven’t heard it enough though: go vote tomorrow. :)
- jliptzin 8y agoI like to vote early/absentee/by mail to free up some congestion for those who prefer to vote in person on Election Day.
- sandworm101 8y agoUber has its issues when it comes to corporate citizenship, but I have to give them credit for this. On the other hand I'd like to see them give their drivers the chance to vote. Imho all employers should be forced to give employees paid time to vote (an absentee ballot doesn't take all that long).
- djohnston 8y agoi agree, it should just be a paid holiday nationally. im optimistic that if people were given a full day off, they would understand why and the rate of civic participation would increase.
- ja27 8y agoThere is no such thing as a national paid holiday for most people. Not even Thanksgiving and Christmas.
- craftyguy 8y agoExactly. I could easily see hourly workers being pissed off at the notion of a mandatory unpaid holiday, resulting in lost hours/wages.
- jameslevy 8y agoWhy not just figure out a secure way to allow people to vote from their smart phones? I know there are some issues to work out, and some political factions that are very motivated to stop this from happening, but it seems like everything else is a half measure in terms of lowering the friction to voting.
- gpm 8y agoBecause we want to focus on solutions that are actually possible. Smart phones are not secure. Their hardware is not secure. Their operating systems are not secure. The software running on the operating systems is not secure. The network they connect to is not secure. The servers they would need to connect to are not secure. There is no paper trail. Every argument against voting machines applies 10x more to smartphones. I say this, while also thinking that if we could securely vote via smartphone we could have a far more functional democracy than we do today.
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoOh please. Election commissions and their data handling, voting machines, and processes they use Are Not Secure. I walked in and obtained a copy of all voter registrations for Bloomington,In (Monroe Co.) And they loaded it on MY usb drive! I was expecting $5 for a burned CD. Nope. Instead they made themselves vulnerable to evil PowerShell or ironpython exploits, or even badUSB. To pretend that our votes is secured is horrendously laughable, except we shouldn't be laughing.
- dlivingston 8y agoAs horrifying as that is, it is ultimately not scalable nationally, while some zero day exploit is.
- k_sh 8y agoThat's voter registration, not votes - and it's specifically because we vote with paper ballots instead of computers/phones that hacking into any official computer system won't allow you to change the results.
- francisofascii 8y agoI think it would backfire. People would take Monday off, make it a 4 day vacation, and would not make it back in time to vote.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoEarly voting everywhere would fix this for the most part.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoI'd rather just have early voting everywhere - but then again, my state has aggressive early voting and no-excuse absentee voting and we still lag behind states like MN.
- Karunamon 8y agoI’m confused by this - Uber drivers are strictly work-when-you-want, so anyone who wants time to vote need only log off the app. (And if they’re wise, park near the polling place and log back on to pick up any return rides)
- Operyl 8y agoSo my next concern is for some of the people, that's half the problem. Are they going to get a free return trip? Probably not. So this is effectively 50% off, not necessarily 100% free.
- throwaway2048 8y ago50%? I'm sure "surge pricing" will be through the roof at polling stations.
- bunderbunder 8y agoAccording to their press release[1], they are offering "$10 off a single ride to the polls on Election Day on the most affordable Uber option available in your city." Implying that, if the ride there would cost more than $10, then it won't be free. Assuming that Uber's own words are a more accurate description of what they're doing. It also feels more honest. So I'm hesitant to fault them for how it's being spun in TFA. 1: https://www.uber.com/newsroom/update-uber-drives-vote/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/update-uber-drives-vote/
- Rebelgecko 8y agoRequiring that the ride is on the cheapest possible uber kinda dampens my enthusiasm for this. I thought it was a nice gesture for people that don't get around as well, however (at least in my area), the cheapest Uber option (Express) often requires a 5-10 minute walk. At that point, you might as well walk straight to your polling location. I suppose it could be useful to people in more rural areas, but I don't know how usable Uber is in less dense towns.
- mmmmmmmmm 8y agoI wonder if there are any polling stations near my local bar.
- tareqak 8y agoLyft has something similar going on, but not quite as wide-ranging: https://blog.lyft.com/posts/2018/8/22/get-out-the-vote https://blog.lyft.com/posts/2018/8/22/get-out-the-vote .
- colanderman 8y agoLime too, and it's both to and from the polls: https://www.li.me/blog/lime-to-the-polls-vote-org-i-am-voter https://www.li.me/blog/lime-to-the-polls-vote-org-i-am-voter
- gpm 8y agoI wonder what effect this has on the outcome of the election and accuracy of poles. I wonder if it could be politicized in the future by offering free rides to only some people (i.e. don't announce it, just create a button in the app, and only create the button depending if the users profile suggests they are likely to vote for party X). Not to suggest I think this is a bad initiative, I think it's a great one.
- sublupo 8y agoCandidates bussing certain people to the poles has been done for a long time
- meltonian 8y agoJust wait til the surge pricing kicks in on the way home!