Vote Forward (sometimes stylized Vote FWD or VoteFWD) is a Democratic-aligned voter registration and mobilization PAC (political action committee).¹ The PAC provides template letters for individuals to complete, sign, and send urging voter participation from unlikely registered voters to increase Democratic voter turnout.²

Background

Vote Forward was established by Scott J. Forman in 2017.³ Forman, a Harvard graduate and product manager, built Vote Forward as an experiment for the 2017 Alabama U.S. Senate special election.⁴ Scott J. Forman stated, “I started @votefwd [Vote Forward] in 2017 to channel my own concern and anger about our politics into action.”⁵

Vote Forward was designed as an online platform to increase Democratic voter turnout for the 2018 midterm elections. Vote Forward allows individuals to sign up to send “please vote” letters to unlikely registered voters in key swing districts for Democratic candidates. Vote Forward receives its mailing lists for districts from state election boards, which provide voter rolls and voting histories to political organizations and the public in the interest of electoral systems transparency.⁶

Vote Forward targeted specific swing districts that were projected to have the greatest influence on control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The PAC used Swing Left’s list of 78 districts and a congressional model by the website FiveThirtyEight, which analyzes opinion polls, to determine which districts had the closest margin for a Democratic victory.⁷ Swing Left is a Democratic PAC that raised $10 million for 2018 Democratic candidates.⁸

Political Activity

Vote Forward lists several critical districts and gives a description of the candidates running in those districts. The PAC provides a more positive portrayal of Democrat candidates and a less favorable description of Republican candidates. The PAC’s most notable listed districts included Florida’s 26th Congressional District, Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, and Michigan’s 8th Congressional District.⁹

Association with Left-Wing Organizations

Vote Forward partnered with Act 4 Impact to host a voter turnout and letter-writing sponsoring event in October 2018.¹⁰ Act 4 Impact was founded in 2018 as a social justice group by Cynthia Cohen, a strategist and consultant for startup companies.¹¹

Vote Forward also partnered with the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund, a political action committee that attempts to elect “pro-environment” politicians, to have members send “please vote” letters to key voters during the 2018 midterm election.¹²

2022 Midterm Elections

During the 2022 midterm elections, Vote Forward partnered with Swing Left, a Democrat Party-aligned Super PAC, to coordinate “The Big Send,” an initiative to write 10 million voter turnout letters to potential voters in swing states in order to increase voter turnout. ^{13 14}

Notable Vendors

In 2018, Vote Forward’s most notable vender was ActBlue, a fundraising platform for left-wing organizations and Democratic Party-aligned PACs. Vote Forward’s donation page directly links to ActBlue’s website to allow the PAC to raise funds.¹⁵

1. Vote Forward. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://votefwd.org/contact.
2. Vote Forward. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://votefwd.org/contact.
3. “Vote Forward.” Vote Forward. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://votefwd.org/.
4. Forman, Scott J. 2018, Scott Forman, viewed 7 November 2018. https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottforman?trk=org-employees_mini-profile_cta.
5. Forman, Scott J. “I Started @votefwd in 2017 to Channel My Own Concern and Anger about Our Politics into Action. It Took Me Two Weeks at the Kitchen Table to Write the First Thousand “Please Vote!” Letters to Alabama. A Few Months Later, I Found out It Had Worked, Meaningfully Boosting Turnout.” Twitter. November 01, 2018. Accessed November 07, 2018. https://twitter.com/sjforman/status/1058051368206852097.
6. Vote Forward. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://votefwd.org/faq.
7. Vote Forward. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://votefwd.org/faq.
8. “Swing Left Summary.” OpenSecrets.org. Accessed November 08, 2018. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00632133&cycle=2018.
9. “Vote Forward.” Vote Forward. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://votefwd.org/.
10. Forward, Vote. “This Was Fun. Thank You, @amybuckner and @act4impactnow for Hosting the Event and Sponsoring the Letter-writing! Https://t.co/DACUnDA4nD.” Twitter. October 16, 2018. Accessed November 07, 2018. https://twitter.com/votefwd/status/1052260672463986688.
11. Cohen, Cynthia. 2018, Cynthia Cohen, viewed 7 November 2018. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiacohen.
12. “Send Letters to Key Voters with LCV & Vote Forward · Vote Forward.” MobilizeAmerica. Accessed November 07, 2018. https://events.mobilizeamerica.io/voteforward/event/78529/.
13. “Help Increase Midterm Turnout!” Vote Forward. Accessed November 4, 2022. https://votefwd.org/bigsend/.
14.  “Swing Left.” Swing Left. Accessed November 4, 2022. https://www.influencewatch.org/political-party/swing-left/.
15. “I Just Gave to Vote Forward!” ActBlue. Accessed November 08, 2018. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/vote-forward.