Program areas at Rock the Vote
Voter education: provides nonpartisan civic and voter education through its website, social media, email, text messages, in-school and in-person activations that target young people. Rock the Vote provides step-by-step guidance with links to resources to new voters through text/email. Rock the Vote produced a comprehensive, one-stop shop election center with vetted voter information to guide 2,938,218 youth through each step of the voting process and enabled them to check their voter registration status, sign up for election reminders, look up polling locations and their sample ballot, and find state-specific voter id requirements and other voting rights information. Rock the Vote helped 172,890 young voters cast an informed ballot by helping voters learn about which candidates most aligned with their values. To power this tool, Rock the Vote collected 41,067 endorsements from 633 organizations, unions, political action committees, and editorial boards that spanned the political spectrum for a total of 9,444 candidates. Through its democracy class initiative, Rock the Vote offers free, one-period lesson plans for high school-age students to learn about the history and importance of voting, the importance of local elections, voting rights, and an issue impacting the local community while also learning the process to register and pre-register to Vote. In 2022, Rock the Vote partnered with atlanta public schools to teach the history of voting and the importance of state and local elections to more than 3,500 public school students in 11th and 12th grades. An additional 470 teachers used the curriculum in their classrooms nationwide.
Voter registration & mobilization: creating a culture shift by reaching young people where they are - on and offline - through trusted messengers with messages that inspire and information that empowers them to participate in the civic process. With research demonstrating the importance of social media to reaching and mobilizing young voters, especially youth of color, Rock the Vote creates and promotes research-based original content on its own social media and digital platforms. In 2022, Rock the Vote generated 12,637,673 social media impressions. In addition, Rock the Vote collaborates with and advises youth brands, media and entertainment companies, technology companies, and trusted messengers to promote and celebrate civic engagement. Rock the Vote ramped up 28 partners through athletes Rock the Vote forming partnerships with professional sports leagues, teams, players associations and college sport conferences reaching more than 160 million in 2022 and even more through 14 partnerships with youth brands, media and entertainment companies. In 2022, Rock the Vote sent more than six million emails and nearly four million text messages reminding youth to Vote, develop a voting plan, and encourage their friends and family members to Vote.
Voting rights & systems modernization: reduces barriers by fighting for young people's right to Vote and modernizing the process to participate. Rock the Vote develops and provides civic technology to nonprofits, schools, companies, and influencers to register and educate voters through cost-effective digital platforms. Rock the Vote also utilizes this technology in its own programming. Rock the Vote provided 436 partners with a suite of technology tools, including Rock the Vote's trusted online voter registration (ovr) platform, registration status lookup tool, absentee ballot request platform, pledge to Vote tool, and ballot tracking and curing tool. A total of 408,848 voters utilized these tools in the 2022 midterm elections. In 2022, Rock the Vote promoted the modernization of voter registration platforms through the creation of educational and marketing materials and outreach to states to promote connected voter registration.