Vote For Your Life is a center-left get-out-the-vote and voter registration group. It’s a joint project created by ViacomCBS, a leading mass media company, and the Ad Council, a public service nonprofit that rates media content. [1]
Background and Creation
According to a ViacomCBS press release from September 2020, Vote For Your Life was created because “voter registration is down by as much as 70% in some states, largely affecting Millennials and Gen Z voters aged 18-30. Adding to this registration crisis, the [COVID-19] pandemic is making it even more critical for all voters to learn about and take advantage of their options to vote early or absentee.” The group focused on registering new voters, largely among traditionally Democratic-leaning demographics: [2]
Vote For Your Life joins voter turnout campaigns from across the ViacomCBS brand portfolio, including National Black Voter Day, which is part of BET’s #ReclaimYourVote, and MTV’s +1 the Vote (including the 2020 Prom Challenge and +1 the Polls). ViacomCBS has also been instrumental in spearheading the launch of Vote Early Day, the new national holiday on October 24 that is supported by nearly 1,300 partners to make early voting options more accessible, as well as Power the Polls, a new initiative to recruit the next generation of young and diverse poll workers to combat the nationwide poll worker shortage, which recently reached 425,000 signups.
Left-of-Center Partners
Besides ViacomCBS and the Ad Council, Vote For Your Life was created with support from a number of liberal advocacy groups, including:
- Vote Early Day
- Equis Labs
- National Black Justice Coalition
- Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (a Tides Center project)
- Millennial Action Project
- NALEO Education Fund
- Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (under the project Election Protection)
- Alliance for Youth Organizing