Health Care-Led Get-Out-the-Vote Efforts as Treatments for Public Health and Democracy

Democratic responsiveness can promote healthier populations. Expanding the electorate by increasing political participation in new and underrepresented voters is one way to bolster both democratic responsiveness and, in the process, public health and population health. In this analytic essay, we argue that health care-based get-out-the-vote efforts can reach new and underrepresented voters. We conducted an observational analysis utilizing 2022 data from Vot-ER, a health care worker-led voter registration organization in the United States, and from the Cooperative Election Study, a nationally representative survey of US adults. Compared with candidate and party campaigns, Vot-ER reached higher rates of unregistered voters, individuals younger than 35 years, and women, as well as Asian, Black, and Hispanic individuals. These findings suggest that health care-based voter registration initiatives can engage populations historically passed over by candidate and party campaigns. Health care worker-led voter mobilization provides a creative and pragmatic avenue for broadening democratic participation, even during midterm elections that historically have lower participation rates. Furthermore, expanding the electorate can help promote responsiveness to these more marginalized voters, cultivating an environment suited for better public and population health outcomes. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print August 6, 2026:e1-e7. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308599).