Uber’s get-out-the-vote efforts involve actually driving voters around

▶ The ridesharing app shifts from lobbying to mobilizing voters ▶ “They are excited to contribute to the political process”

New Uber customers who signed up in Texas on Nov. 3 got an unusual bonus from the ridesharing company: a free lift to and from the polls. The offer, timed to coincide with state elections, was advertised with the promotion code Texasvotes. “We want you to think about what’s important to you, not how you’re going to get to and from your local polling place,” the company said on its blog.

Uber offered a similar deal in Canada in October during national parliamentary elections. The promotions mark a shift for the company—which in 2014 hired David Plouffe, a former adviser to President Obama, to oversee its political strategy—from lobbying elected officials to encouraging its growing base of drivers and customers to vote. “Uber has become such a critical part of people’s lives that they are excited to contribute to the political process,” says spokesman Justin Kintz.

Uber has long used its app as a tool for asking customers to call or e-mail local elected officials about regulatory proposals that affect the company. In September it successfully employed this tactic to block tougher insurance requirements and background checks for Uber and other ridesharing companies in Palm Beach County, Fla. “Uber was brilliant in motivating and activating their users,” says Melissa Mckinlay, a Palm Beach County commissioner whose office was flooded with e-mails and calls asking her to oppose the proposed rules.

Gabriel Lenz was in Hawaii earlier this year when he got an alert via his Uber app to sign a petition against proposed state legislation tightening regulations for ridesharing services. “That’s a much better way of reaching people than anything that campaigns would ever have,” says Lenz, an associate professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley. “If a campaign sends you a postcard telling you to turn out to vote, on average that will have a zero effect on your behavior.”

Uber has faced opposition from established taxi and livery services, which say Uber undercuts the market by sidestepping regulations designed to increase safety. “For their size, they have immense amounts of regulatory battles,” says Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University’s business school who studies the sharing economy.

In San Jose, California’s third-largest city, lawmakers in November backed away from a proposal that would have required fingerprinting of Uber

drivers—just like taxi drivers. Instead, after Uber urged local riders to e-mail the city council, San Jose instituted random curbside fingerprint checks. “It’s a compromise that I’m far from happy with,” says San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo. “It’s hardly surprising that an industry that relies on a mobile app to engage customers would use that same mobile app for advocacy.”

When New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans this year to cap Uber’s fleet, the company added a “de Blasio” tab on its app that showed a map void of its familiar car icons, with wait times of 25 minutes or more—the outcome of the mayor’s proposed policy change, according to Uber. The app prompted riders to tweet their opposition; 18,623 people did. An additional 49,239 people sent e-mails to the mayor, who dropped the proposal in July. “It’s easy for many public officials to look at a big company and not listen to the message that’s being developed by the company,” says Uber spokesman Kintz. “When they hear that message from tens of thousands of people in their community, that’s when they really start to pay attention.”

The company has a corporate policy of not contributing to political campaigns or endorsing candidates. But in October, Uber blasted e-mails to riders in Seattle—where the city council is considering allowing the company’s drivers to unionize—urging customers to register to vote in order to influence “how the Council manages the ridesharing options you depend on.” More than 5,000 people complied, according to Uber.

The company won’t say how many people it ferried to the polls in Texas and Canada or whether it plans to roll out similar offers during next year’s presidential election. “They are turning the common practice of giving voters a ride to the polls into a marketing tool,” says Joseph Fishkin, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “This is a company that’s hoping to get new customers out of it, so that’s creative.” �Alison Vekshin

The bottom line Uber is using e-mail and even free rides to the polls to get its customers involved in politics.

Edited by Allison Hoffman Bloomberg.com