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by Torrey Hart
More Than A Vote, the LeBron James-founded voting rights coalition, is partnering with entertainment company Live Nation to convert venues into COVID-19 safe polling sites.
The voting group had already secured over 20 sports facilities for the cause — before most NBA teams committed to trying to do so with their own arenas — and is now involved in the effort to explore doing the same for over 100 concert halls and music venues. Live Nation owns or operates about 110 venues, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The idea behind the effort is that large capacity venues provide voters the ability to cast ballots in-person in their communities, with room for social distancing.
The partnership has already yielded four confirmed venues: The Wiltern and Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, Emo’s in Austin and the Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta. The groups are in the “final stages” of vetting The Fillmore in Philadelphia.
“By converting their concert venues into voting locations, Live Nation is creating a safe and convenient way for people to exercise their right to vote this fall,” More Than A Vote Executive Vice President of Public Affairs Michael Tyler said in a release. “Similar to the sports arenas More Than A Vote has worked to convert into voting locations, many of Live Nation’s venues are located in the heart of the communities that we are committed to empowering in this election and offer the same COVID protections due to their large capacity.”
On Aug. 17, the full group of prominent athletes and entertainers behind More Than A Vote signed an open letter and call to action to fans — marking the first time the complete list of founders was revealed — highlighting the issue of Black voter suppression.
The letter detailed three threats to Black voters: the first was the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately affects Black communities; the second was the “systemic abuse of political power to make voting more difficult;” and the third was “deliberately lying to and misinforming Black voters.”
More Than a Vote later announced a multi-million dollar initiative to increase the number of poll workers in Black electoral districts.
