Uber and Lyft will help you find your polling station on election day

In each election season, Uber and Lyft vie for the position of the most popular corporate citizen by offering various promotions, such as free or discounted rides for polling sites. This year, both companies are trying something new. On November 6, Uber will add a new button in its app that will help people find and book trips to their polling place. Uber hopes this will contribute to the vote. Lyft also promises something similar.

The poll locator will be available to all residents of the United States, but it is intended for suburban or suburban voters who generally live outside the voting distance of their polling place. Voters can view various websites to find their voting information, but pairing it with a transportation service could help narrow the gap between the intention to vote and go to the polls.

Lyft also aims to help its customers find their polling place. In a recent announcement, the company announced the publication of a "product integration to help passengers find their polling place", without however specifying what this integration would look like.

Polls indicate that voter enthusiasm is at its highest level this year, but if history is an indicator, most eligible voters will stay home. Just over a third of voters voted across the country in the last mid-term elections, the lowest since 1942, according to a New York Times report. Estimates from the Information and Research Center on Learning and Civic Engagement indicate that about 15 million people did not vote in the 2016 election because they did not have transportation to attend. go to the polls.

Uber hopes that he will be able to make a small contribution to the participation. "By using our technology and resources, we can help all US Uber users get to their polls more easily," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.

Ride-hail will also partner with two GOTV organizations, #VoteTogether and Democracy Works, to provide free rides to users in certain communities. Uber will also help register runners and drivers to vote by sharing voter registration information via the app. An email was sent this week to all Uber drivers to encourage them to visit one of Uber's 125 Greenlight Hubs where they can register to vote.

In August, Lyft announced plans to give GOTV partners a 50% discount on promotional codes to encourage voter turnout. Neither Uber nor Lyft would say how many free and discounted outings they plan to distribute.