Voting in Dayton will come with a soundtrack today. DJs at the Polls, a nonpartisan program that pays local disc jockeys to play outside polling places, plans DJs at 18 Dayton sites on Election Day, according to the Dayton Weekly News.
At Thurgood Marshall High School, DJ Pretty Boy Troy is set to spin from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m., working Zapp, Lakeside and the Ohio Players into his set as voters head for the sign-in table, the Dayton Weekly News reported. Troy came to the area to study at Wilberforce University, and the newspaper reported he wants his set to point people toward Dayton’s own funk history — a fitting choice in the city that gave the genre some of its biggest acts.
Other Dayton stops planned for the program include Dunbar High School, Louise Troy Elementary, St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church and Northwest Metro Library, according to the Dayton Weekly News. Final DJ assignments were not confirmed at press time, the newspaper noted, and voters can check djsatthepolls.org for updates.
The Dayton effort is one piece of a national program. DJs at the Polls began in Philadelphia in 2009, when founder Anton Moore placed a DJ outside his neighborhood polling place, and has since grown into an effort placing about 2,000 local DJs at thousands of polling sites in 24 states this year, according to program accounts reported by Berkeleyside and the San Antonio Current. The DJs play family-friendly music, wear no campaign gear and never mention candidates, parties or ballot measures.
In central Ohio, the same idea arrives at larger scale: local DJs will play at 56 polling locations in Columbus and Reynoldsburg on Election Day, according to Columbus Dispatch reporting. Organizers say the point is to make voting feel like a neighborhood gathering, particularly in communities where turnout has historically lagged.
The approach has research behind it. Program leaders say randomized trials of earlier cycles found that DJs outside polling places measurably lifted turnout, and the effort deliberately focuses on neighborhoods with large numbers of young voters, first-time voters and voters of color, according to the San Antonio Current’s account of the program. In Dayton, organizers paired that turnout mission with hometown pride, building sets around the city’s funk legacy.
One caution applies in Dayton as everywhere else: a DJ at a site does not make it your polling place. Montgomery County voters should verify their assigned location with the Montgomery County Board of Elections before heading out, the Dayton Weekly News reminded readers. Polls are open today from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and anyone in line by 7:30 p.m. will be permitted to vote.