Chapters of the Freedom From Religion Foundation all over the nation have launched a second round of a voter awareness billboard campaign in swing states.
Red-white-and-blue billboards proclaiming “Be a Voter — Save Democracy” and personalized to each swing state have gone up in all seven of these states. Most of the billboards are located near major public universities, with the chapters aiming their message at Gen Z students, who historically need more encouragement to vote and are more likely to belong to the growing number of religiously unaffiliated Americans with secular values.
The billboards exhorting swing states to vote are now on display in:
- Las Vegas — Tropicana east of Paradise, west of Tourist Rotary, near the University of Nevada
- Atlanta — Marietta Street 125 feet east of Centennial Olympic Park, near Morehouse College
- Ann Arbor, Mich. — Liberty Street West, west of First Street, near the University of Michigan
- Charlotte, N.C. — US 49 0.2 miles north of US 29, near the University of North Carolina
- Philadelphia — a prominent bridge on Banksville Road a quarter mile south of Parkway West, near Temple University
Billboards with similar themes were previously erected in Madison, Wis., Phoenix and Pittsburgh. A total of 10 billboards (including a “bonus” billboard in the important-but-not-swing state of Florida) have been placed, thanks to the generosity of 20-some FFRF chapters in a campaign spearheaded by Judy Saint, director of the Greater Sacramento Chapter of FFRF. The chapters contributed $32,000, with the national FFRF almost matching.
FFRF thanks its chapters around the country. Although most chapters are not in swing states, they nevertheless raised the funds to make possible this vital outreach to young voters in pivotal areas of the nation.
The billboards are the most visible part of a multimedia “Vote like your rights depend on it — because they do” that the state/church watchdog campaign has undertaken this fall aimed at mobilizing young and undecided voters, especially the growing population of Gen Z “Nones.” That campaign includes ads on SiriusXM programs such as “The Stephanie Miller Show” and targeting content across social media platforms. The voter awareness ads send listeners to a webpage describing how they can make their voices heard in this election.
“At FFRF, we’re on the front lines, fighting to preserve democracy and resist theocracy through litigation, education and advocacy,” notes FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “We work to eliminate the dangers at the heart of these assaults by keeping religion out of government. And that starts at the ballot box.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.