Voting: The Right and The Privilege

Last Friday, I voted for the first time. I recently became a citizen of the United States, and with it, I earned the right and privilege to vote. I have been looking forward to this opportunity for years. I woke up early and was in line by 6:30 am, where I stood for two hours on a cold and rainy morning with other excited voters. The energy was incredible and you could see how committed people were; they wrapped around the block, in the rain, to have their voices heard. It was powerful. 

As I filled out the ballot, I felt a mix of nervous energy, excitement, and pride. To partake in the political process as a U.S. citizen is truly a privilege, one that people often take for granted. As I cast my ballot, I did so with the confidence that I educated myself on the issues that were important to me and made an informed choice. 

Information is at the heart of all elections - trusted and factual information. Without that, there is no accountability and credibility. When I researched the candidates and their positions, I turned to Verizon Media’s trusted ecosystem to educate myself as a voter. Providing our audience with content that keeps them informed on the issues that matter—politically and otherwise—is a massive responsibility and cornerstone of democracy. We do not take it lightly. We will approach reporting any election results very, very carefully, and we are partnering with AP for our election race calls. We will also continue to vet our partner content with human curation. And to combat disinformation, our talented team of seasoned political journalists will continue to fact check and note discrepancies for our audiences.

We also created an offering that provides consumers with a 360 degree view of the issues at stake. Here’s what Verizon Media has been doing to ensure that our consumers have access to the latest election content: 

• We launched a Yahoo Election Hub - a centralized one-stop platform featuring reporting from across the trusted news sources that also includes polling data and a section on battleground states, fact checked content, register to vote module and aggregated coverage from major news sources like New York Times, USA Today, AP, Fox, Bloomberg and more.  
• Launched a “Voting Playbook,” with Yahoo Sports for an interactive map of the U.S. featuring athlete-hosted instructional videos on the complete voting process in each state. 
• Yahoo Mail also rolled out a new “Today” tab in the app that will bring overall news, content and election coverage from the Yahoo ecosystem to Yahoo Mail users, the first integration of its kind.
• Verizon Media’s new XR content includes cutouts of the candidates, 3D models of the electoral map, and visualizing a mail-in ballot by itself and data-visualized as a stack of the millions of ballots that need to be counted for this election to go smoothly. We also launched “I Registered” and 50 "I voted" AR stickers customized for each state for election day.

We’re also supporting Verizon Media employees on Election Day by giving them time off to vote or participate in voting-related volunteer opportunities. We want our employees to feel as empowered as our consumers to partake in civic duties on this important day. 

After casting my ballot, I reflected on the experience, and while I barely spoke to anyone inside, I left the polling station having made my voice heard. That is an incredible feeling. Whatever your role is in the election and in the days that follow -- I hope you feel informed, empowered, and proud of the role we can all play in our democracy.