With less than a week remaining for all ballots to be cast, one of the nation’s premier voter engagement organizations is in the final stages of its efforts to maintain the record turnout from the two previous elections.
Vote.org, which runs voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, has seen tremendous use of its services even after Americans broke a 100-year-old midterm turnout record in 2018, said CEO Andrea Hailey.
“In key states like Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania ... we’ve seen over 100 percent growth compared to 2018,” Hailey said. “It’s about 91 percent of the traffic that we saw in 2018, but in key states we’re seeing these huge increases.”
Those states and others such as Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio are home to hard-fought races for Senate and governor that will decide the direction of federal and state policymaking for years to come.
The final days of election season will feature a focus on voter education, as well as a continuation of ongoing outreach efforts.
“Now that we’re touching one in five Americans, we need to make sure we remain a trusted source of information,” Hailey said, specifically noting the confusing nature of provisional ballots. “On election night we’ll be there to ensure people understand what’s happening.”
With states changing their election laws in the wake of the 2020 presidential contest, which was the subject of false allegations of fraud by supporters of Donald Trump, Vote.org has had to adjust its plans accordingly.
“It was frustrating. On the heels of the highest turnout we’ve seen in 100 years, it was sad. We should have been celebrating but we saw hundreds of voter bills circulating,” Hailey said.
She referred to such bills as “death by a thousand cuts,” claiming they are a collection of efforts to limit who votes.
Hailey pointed to the “wet signature” laws passed in Texas and Georgia that require people to print, sign with ink (hence the wet signature) and mail voter registration forms rather than completing an online form.
“When we have the technology and know it’s working, to say digital signature is no longer valid is preposterous,” she said. “That directly affected our users. We could no longer provide the tool.”
Some of the group’s resources in the coming days will be applied to combating misinformation even though Hailey believes that problem isn’t as intense now as it was in 2020 when voting by mail was the subject of harmful disinformation.
“I’m concerned when people say preemptively that they’re going to contest elections if they don’t win,” Hailey said, noting her organization has a partnership with Twitter to provide nonpartisan information. “We’ll be ready to respond with the facts and the actual truth.”
Up until these final days of the campaign, the focus has been on registering voters and encouraging them to cast ballots. Hailey said Vote.org had more users than all previous years combined in 2020, and while it may not match those numbers, there are other areas of growth.
“Our get-out-the-vote program this election is much larger,” she said, explaining the organization has focused on engaging young voters and communities of color – reaching 60 million people through its radio program alone.
Vote.org has created a multipronged approach to reaching those communities: advertising (digital, streaming services, student newspapers) and partnerships (WhatsApp, Pinterest, the NAACP’s Youth & College program, the College Board, and universities). There has been an 11 percent increase in the use of the Vote.org platform by members of Generation Z and millennials, according to the group’s representatives.
The group has also recruited influencers who have helped spread the word about voting, including Taylor Swift and Josh Gad.
“There are only 20 midnights until the 2022 United States Midterm Elections on November 8,” Swift wrote in an Instagram story last month that linked to Vote.org. (Her newly released album is titled “Midnights.”) She also used the post to encourage early voting.
Gad has also used his social media platforms to encourage voting in the final days before Nov. 8.
A secondary level of outreach includes a series of partnerships with micro influencers supporting efforts on a state-by-state basis as well as YouTube gamers who agreed to use portions of their videos to encourage voting.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."