Campaign Aims to Help Americans Vote During Coronavirus Pandemic

(Bloomberg) -- As states adapt voting practices due to the coronavirus pandemic, a $20 million campaign launched Thursday by a nonpartisan nonprofit organization aims to educate voters about the changes, seeking to avoid the problems that have marred recent primary elections.

With vote by mail and no-excuse absentee ballots gaining popularity around the country, iVote Civic Education Fund is launching iVoteFACTS to inform voters in five battleground states about the ways they can participate in the November elections. The campaign will urge voters to take advantage of options that allow them to cast a ballot ahead of Election Day.

The effort comes as voters in multiple states have struggled to participate in primaries during the pandemic due to difficulties obtaining absentee ballots and limits on the number of in-person polling places. Primary elections in Georgia on Tuesday were marred by confusion, as voters waited in hours-long lines due to poll worker shortages, missing or malfunctioning voting machines and a lack of provisional ballots.

“Coronavirus is wreaking havoc on so much of our national life, but if we educate people about how to vote safely this year and take advantage of new options to cast their ballots early and by mail, we can prevent it from damaging our democracy,” Ellen Kurz, iVote founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Already nearly 30 states have made changes to their voting practices.

The $20 million paid media program will span television, digital and mail in five key battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona. The program will be focused on voter education with a particular emphasis on reaching communities of color and young voters.

The nonpartisan effort includes several senior advisers to 2020 presidential candidates including Addisu Demissie, the former campaign manager for Cory Booker who just joined Joe Biden’s campaign as a senior adviser, Hari Sevugan, who served as Pete Buttigieg’s deputy campaign manager, and Rebecca Pearcey, Elizabeth Warren’s former national political director.

The advisory team also includes Tim Miller, former communications director for Jeb Bush, Charlie Baker, former chief administrative officer for Hillary for America, Betsy Hoover, co-founder of Higher Ground Labs, Mayra Macías, executive director of Latino Victory Project and Mark Ritchie, the former Minnesota secretary of state.

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