If politics doesn't think about it, sport comes to the rescue. It is no mystery that in the United States the media power of the NBA, the most followed basketball league in the world, and its iconic player, LeBron Jamesgoes well beyond the boundaries of the playing field. Many will remember the endorsement of the Los Angeles Lakers star (at the time with the Cleveland Cavaliers) for the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Then, during Donald Trump's mandate, the NBA world often and openly sided against intolerant ways of the president. But now the oval ball wants to do even more: the tournament has restarted after the closure due to Covid (the playoffs are being played) and has institutionally married the instances of the Black Lives Matter movement. The slogan of the African-American protest stands out in large letters on the parquet of the matches in the Orlando "bubble", where all the matches are being played behind closed doors.
It is therefore no coincidence that Trump has repeatedly said that he despises the tournament and does not want to attend it. But he will have to deal with the fact that the playoffs and above all the finals will be played in the middle of the electoral campaign (they are scheduled for the first half of October) and that the visibility that LeBron James and his associates will have could be decisive in involving the African-American electorate and therefore deciding the fate of the vote on November 3rd. Also because the NBA's commitment will continue until that date. In fact, in recent months More Than A Vote was born, a movement of basketball players led once again by LeBron James (but athletes from other sports and show business stars have already joined) who have launched another challenge to President Trump: the players will donate several million dollars to increase the number of counters in the polling stations of the African-American communities, above all in the so-called swing states namely Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio.
The initiative is made to counterbalance the fact that the tycoon is clearly trying to sabotage the vote, reducing the staff at the polling stations with the excuse of Covid and even assuming to postpone it, after having declared that he did not trust the vote by mail. The Chamber has already intervened on the postal vote, where the Dems are in the majority and have refinanced the postal service with 25 billion, to guarantee a voting method that will be very important these days. But to help make the session even more regular, with the physical presence of scrutineers in the constituencies, the collective led by LeBron James takes the field. The project, in partnership with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, aims not only to recruit young people to serve in polling stations in swing states where the presence of African Americans is high, but also to finance a correct information campaign to invite citizens to exercise their right.
Indeed, there will be a need for that money: for example, Wisconsin, which in April was one of the first states to hold primary elections after the virus had spread nationwide, had to cut Milwaukee's polling places from 180 to 5, due to the shortage of poll workers. Experts – reported the New York Times – have stated that such closures have had a particular effect in black communities, where access to polling stations is already poorly guaranteed: "Citizens in line - wrote the prestigious newspaper - waited more than four hours and many complained of not having received the ballot paper to vote by mail, after they had requested it”. To ensure a widespread presence of polling stations even in the areas most abandoned by politics, sport is intervening. Because that of 3 November, many now think so, is "more than an election".
