Can You Still Get a Ride to the Polls During the Pandemic?

Uber, Lyft and companies like Silver Lift are requiring drivers and passengers to wear face masks. Camacho says his drivers must sanitize their vehicles between trips and are taking only one rider at a time.

Community advocates organizing rides

The pandemic is not stopping religious groups, not-for-profit organizations and advocates across the country from providing rides for voters themselves. Several branches of the NAACP are organizing transportation options for voters.

Free limo rides will be available to older voters in Baltimore, Detroit, Kansas City, Missouri, Los Angeles and Miami, thanks to a partnership between the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association and the National Urban League.

In addition, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, the country's largest homeownership advocacy group, is coordinating more than 150 vans that are driving voters to the polls in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. They've already helped about 25,000 people cast their ballots in person during early voting and are hoping to drive 100,000 voters during this election, says Bruce Marks, the organization's CEO.

"It's particularly important in Georgia and other places in this country where people have fought and died for the right to vote,” Marks says. “Some people don't want to do absentee ballots. They want to personally go to the voting booth.”

Local party campaigns

Some local Democratic and Republican chapters and campaign offices are also driving voters to support their parties’ candidates, something that's been a mainstay of elections for many years.

GOP offices in Winona County, Minnesota, and Hillsborough County, Florida, are giving rides to voters who contact them.

Sarah Kovich, founder of the Texas-based Rideshare2Vote organization, which works with Democratic campaigns to drive voters to polling locations, says the logistics involved with transporting voters can be challenging for campaigns and chapters. Her organization is helping voters and campaigns despite the COVID-19 outbreak, mainly in Texas but also in North Carolina and West Virginia.

"The drivers haven't even flinched,” says Kovich, who is heartened by the number of volunteers who've agreed to welcome strangers into their cars during the pandemic.

Public transportation

Los Angeles is one of several cities large and small offering free public transportation on Election Day. But free rides to the polls aren't limited to cities. Many bus systems in more rural parts of the country are offering free or discounted rides Tuesday.

For example, the Capital Area Rural Transportation System (CARTS), which serves the 7,200-square-mile area surrounding Austin, is offering free curb-to-curb bus rides to voters on Election Day and during the state's early voting window. Dana Platt, the CARTS community outreach director, says that the buses are being sanitized regularly and that riders are required to socially distance and wear a mask.

"We're disinfecting and sanitizing as much as possible,” she says.