Our Accomplishments

Vote Positive USA grew from the power and passion of women and people of trans experience living with HIV who reached over 10,000 voters in 2018 — primarily low-income people of color in critical states, including those who had never been contacted by established engagement groups.  

•  We offered a 5-part webinar series and electoral organizing toolkit designed to engage the HIV community and service providers.
• We sponsored the first Get Out the HIV Vote Day on October 24, in which women and trans people living with HIV successfully recruited HIV organizations to phone bank their clients and develop plans to get them to the polls.
• We registered voters from “hard-to-reach” communities, Black, Latinx, and low-income folks–including people with felony convictions who thought they couldn’t vote, monolingual Spanish speakers, people who were marginally housed, and active substance users.
• We followed up with voters we registered and those who pledged to vote, with information about their ballots, how and where to vote in the general election, and to offer rides.
• We used Vote With Me to link and target our contact list; phone banked; used peer-to-peer texting; canvassed thousands of voters and reached thousands more through literature drop with information about what was on their ballots.
• In Colorado, we developed a voter registration site with a dedicated link through the state elections board, with four local leaders serving as precinct captains. Within a few months, we registered 300 voters (including 47 with prior felonies who thought they couldn’t vote; monolingual Spanish speakers; rural voters; and 41 who had never voted before), knocked on 800 doors, and phone-banked 2300 voters. Leaders picked up and delivered 34 ballots for people with disabilities, gave rides to the polls, and brought water, snacks, and food to help folks stay in line to vote.
• In Texas, door-knocking, literature drops, phone banks, and non-traditional get-out-the-vote efforts led to the registration of hundreds of voters and contacts with over 5,000 voters in Dallas and Houston with information about what was on their ballot. Leaders covered large apartment buildings in low turnout precincts that had been overlooked by other groups, monitored the polls, reported irregularities, and gave dozens of rides on election day.

A year later, in October 2019, teams led by women and people of trans experience living with HIV, predominantly Black and non-Black people of color hailing from ten states—Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas—came together in Atlanta to kick off Vote Positive USA with a packed, five-day, hands-on boot camp training in electoral organizing.

At the training, the teams learned to leverage their organizing power to expand the electorate in their communities, while educating, organizing, and mobilizing voters on issues that impact the HIV community. And now, they’re putting it all into action — thanks to your support for Vote Positive USA.

Nobody should have to choose between putting their health at risk and exercising their right to vote. Yet some political leaders are taking advantage of COVID-19 to suppress the vote. 

Vote Positive USA is undaunted in reaching out in our communities to make sure our votes are cast, and counted. We’re mobilizing for new or expanded ways to vote, including voting by mail. Expanding the right to vote by mail is a safe and effective option for our upcoming elections in the midst of voter disenfranchisement efforts, including decreasing the number of polling locations, restricting hours, and limiting access to public transportation in lower income areas and communities of color.