When the pandemic brought early retirement to Laura Estersohn, who taught math for more than two decades, she realized maybe she wasn’t done teaching just yet.

“As an educator, I wanted to make sure that people, particularly young people, know how to vote and know how to exercise their right to vote.”

Estersohn, 70, is one of thousands of volunteers across the country that help run the DNC’s Voter Assistance Hotline. As a volunteer hotline coordinator, Estersohn recruits and trains volunteers to answer voters' questions as accurately and quickly as possible.

What You Need To Know

  • The DNC announced Tuesday a new voter text hotline to reach even more individuals with questions leading up to the election

  • The text hotline will be available in both English and Spanish

  • The text and phone hotlines are run by both DNC employees and dedicated volunteers like Laura Estersohn, a retired school teacher from New York

  • While the DNC runs these hotlines, they are nonpartisan, and the voter asking for information will not be asked to disclosing their party preference

“It's been very, very gratifying, helping people vote,” said Estersohn, who has helped create training videos and holds one-on-one training sessions for volunteers to prepare to answer voters’ questions. “We get calls from all 50 states, and we research answers to their voting questions. And I think it's very important that people know how to vote and exercise their right to vote. And when I think of what I value most in our country, our freedoms, our Constitution, I really want people to know how to vote.”  

The DNC announced Tuesday a new voter text hotline to reach even more people where they are at. It’s DNC staff and volunteers like Estersohn that will be on the other end of the line. Both the text and phone hotlines are available in English and Spanish.

“We can reach people where they are – if young people prefer texting, we have this new text line,” she said.

“Many times, folks may not want to call, but they are standing in line and they want to text because they're running into some type of issue,” explained DNC Chair Jaime Harrison. 

“Say, for instance, you're standing in line, you're running into an issue, somebody is trying to keep you from voting, and so you need to get some help, or you need to get more updated information on where your voting precinct is or what have you…you can text that VOTE to 70888. and then you automatically get somebody from the DNC, who can help you,” Harrison added.

While the DNC is running both the phone and text hotline, Harrison stressed that these tools are for everyone – not just registered Democrats.

“It doesn't matter if you're Democrat, you're Republican or independent. We want to see all voters go out and exercise their right to vote,” said Harrison.

Estersohn added: “We do not ask anything about their party affiliation or who they're voting for. We are really there to answer voting questions for anyone, any, any eligible US voter.”

To check your voter registration online, you can go to IWillVote.com