Sacramento Kings owner thinks American voting should be as easy as calling an Uber

Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive had some things to say about voting.

If you’ve ever voted in literally any political election in the United States, you’re already aware of what a hassle it can be. Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive agrees, believing it should be a much simpler process in a country that doesn’t even give its citizens the day off to go and vote.

In a phone interview with ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, Ranadive spoke about how changes to American voting are lone overdue:

"“Let’s make voting as easy as ordering an Uber,” Ranadive said. “We’re kind of in the digital era right now. I call it Civilization 3.0. You know, 1.0 was kind of the agricultural era. It was the start of civilization and people were farmers and land was the raw material. And the Industrial Revolution was 2.0. It was all about the factories and it was about efficiency and energy and steel were the raw materials.“And now we’ve fully entered the digital era, where the world’s largest book seller has no bookstores and the world’s largest taxi company has no cars, and so on. But we’re still in the agricultural era in terms of how we vote. So it’s time to bring it up to speed.”"

Unfortunately, with an incredibly important presidential election coming up in November, such drastic, widespread changes to how voting works in the U.S. will have to wait until 2024.

In the meantime though, the Kings announced the relaunch of the “Rally the Vote” campaign, which is a coalition between 20 other sports teams in the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, WNBA and NWSL that encourages people to register to vote and helps streamline the voting process.

The coalition began with nine teams back in 2018, but has since grown to include the Kings, Chicago Bulls, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trail Blazers and Washington Wizards in the NBA, as well as the New York Giants in the NFL; the Chicago White Sox, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants in MLB; the Los Angeles Football Club in MLS; the Chicago Sky, Indiana Fever, Minnesota Lynx, Phoenix Mercury, Seattle Storm and Washington Mystics in the WNBA; and the Washington Spirit in NWSL.

Last month, the Kings announced that the Golden 1 Center will be used as the largest vote center in Sacramento County history when it’s open from Oct. 24 until Nov. 3 leading up to the presidential election. Until voting is as easy and convenient as ordering an Uber, hopefully the “Rally the Vote” coalition will be able to raise voter awareness.