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Arizona State University

Vote Forward and the Push to Vote

Sabrina Cook

Dr. Eileen Eisen-Cohen

PAF 112

8 December 2020
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Sabrina Cook

Dr. Eileen Eisen-Cohen

PAF 112

8 December 2020

Vote Forward and the Push to Vote

This has been a challenging year, made more difficult by political divides, but that has

also brought the individual parties together in new ways. Vote Forward is an organization to get

voters information. There are many voting information websites and organizations now, but Vote

Forward stands out by engaging with volunteers to send hand-written letters to voters. Letter

writing may be an old-fashioned idea but it has a more personal touch than the emails, calls, and

texts that inundated the populace this year. Vote Forward has rallied volunteers through their

identities to join their letter writing campaign to encourage voting.

Vote Forward functions entirely through volunteer letter writing. The online platform

allows volunteers to “adopt voters, download typed letter templates to which you’ll add a

handwritten message, and manage your progress by marking your letters “prepared,” and then

marking them “sent” on the mail date” (Vote Forward). The personalized message is expected to

be nonpartisan to better engage letter recipients. Volunteers provide their own paper, envelopes,

and stamps for the letters which had the additional benefit of raising $9.6 million for the USPS in

stamps with over 17 million letters sent (@voteforward). “Vote Forward volunteers encourage

fellow citizens to participate in our democracy by writing and sending letters at their own

expense” (votefwd.org), and the results show that voting turn outs do increase in the states letters

were addressed. In the time of stay at home orders and a rampant virus, letters are a unique and
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personal way of reaching out and engaging with US democracy and making a difference through

volunteer work.

Volunteers come in many forms when utilizing an online platform and Vote Forward

encouraged participation among many identities. Identity is “a shared characteristic that can

cause people to form a group, such as race, gender, class, religion and sexuality. Shared beliefs

or shared experiences can also lead to a sense of identity” (Koppell). Vote Forward paired with

organizations such as Swing Left- who’s message was to flip the senate and encourage people to

vote blue down the ballot- to motivate democrats in particular to get involved. Political party has

become a stand out part of a person’s identity, and the push to vote before the presidential

election capitalized on that. Any person of any age, ethnicity, or economic standing can be a

democrat; and from all states, volunteers rallied democrats to protect the vote by encouraging

others to register and vote in this year’s election.

Social distancing was key for this year with the virus still active, and Vote Forward was

the perfect organization to get involved with this election cycle. They partnered with Swing Left

and worked with celebrities, such as the cast members of American Idiot the Musical, to host

letter writing parties where “the cast will get volunteers trained and entertained-- and most

importantly, write lots of letters to underrepresented voters asking them to vote in critical

elections, and then send them all out the next day!” (BWW News Desk). Leveraging fan bases of

celebrities and shows is one way they motivated and gathered democrats and other to help out

their cause. They motivated their fans by featuring “live performances, fan trivia, un-released

recordings from the Broadway production” (BWW News Desk) and other show-based media

only seen during the event. This and other events, as well as an outpouring of social media
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support, resulted in over 182,000 volunteers writing and sending over 17 million letters to

potential voters (@voteforward).

Vote Forward is working to spread voting information and mobilize volunteers on a

national level. They utilize volunteers and a nonpartisan message in handwritten and addressed

letters to encourage voting among democrats who did not vote previously and those groups that

are typically less likely to vote. The volunteers are gathered through social media campaigns and

celebrities leveraging their fans around this basic act of service- voting. “The personal touch is

key, said Scott Forman, 37, who founded Vote Forward in 2017” (Castle). In a state level

campaign, there was a 3.4 percentage point higher voter turn out among those who received

letter versus those who had not. The letter campaign works to help protect the vote of those Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. fought for. Just as those disenfranchised after their right to vote was

written into law but not upheld, Vote Forward gathers people to push for the vote and rallies

those disenfranchised voters to go out and claim their right. It gathers many people of many

different identities under the unifying label of democrat and those who believe in the democracy

of the United States.

Encouraging people to vote is one of the greatest uses of social engagement. Letter

writing may be seen as old fashioned but a personal letter can still have the power to touch

people, and especially those who may otherwise have not taken advantage of their rights. Vote

Forward brought together many people who identified as democrat under this one cause through

events and social media to engage in our democracy in one of the easiest but most important

ways.
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Works Cited

@voteforward. “It's the moment you've all been waiting for: the final tally of letters written for
#TheBigSend!” Instagram, 23 October 2020,
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGs08uNguIP/.

BWW News Desk. “Stark Sands, John Gallagher Jr. and More From AMERICAN IDIOT Team
Up with Swing Left for Final Letter Writing Party.” BroadwayWorld.com,
BroadwayWorld.com, 14 Oct. 2020, www.broadwayworld.com/article/Stark-Sands-John-
Gallagher-Jr-and-More-From-AMERICAN-IDIOT-Team-Up-with-Swing-Left-for-Final-
Letter-Writing-Party-20201014.

Carson, C. (2001). Give us the Ballot. A call to conscience: The landmark speeches of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr: (43-56). New York: Warner Brothers Inc.

Castle, Shay. “A Cutting-Edge Tactic to Get Out the Vote in 2020: Handwritten Letters.” The
New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Oct. 2020,
www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/us/politics/vote-forward-letter.html.

Koppell, Jonathan, Ph.D. "Check for Understanding." PAF 112, Arizona State University. 13
October 2020. Course handout.

Vote Forward, 2020, votefwd.org/. Accessed 8 December 2020.