By Dorany Pineda
Funny or Die and NextGen Climate teamed up for the free “Jokes for Votes” comedy show that promoted voter registration on Thursday at East Los Angeles College.
Comedians Sarah Silverman, Reggie Watts, James Adomian, Thomas Dale and Beth Stelling took the Auditorium Foyer stage for two hours of laughs and voter registration promotion.
“Sarah Silverman was as brilliant and provocative as she always is. You expect Silverman to talk about her run-in with a 9-year-old abortion protester who told her she would burn in hell, but she then made her smile by telling a poop joke,” Eros Saldana, an ELAC student who attended the show, said.
The performers, among others, will alternate their show appearances at an additional 19 stops at other college campuses and universities before the Oct. 24 California registration deadline.
Other campus stops include California State University, Los Angeles; San Diego State University; University of California, Riverside; and CSU Northridge.
“We’re trying to hit every major stop. We want to hit everyone we can and make sure we’re finding where these unregistered students are and students who have seemed checked out to the whole process,” Michael Burke of Funny or Die said.
Their goal, said Burke, was to identify them and give them an amazing free show.
According to the Jokes for Votes tour press release, 7 million eligible Californians are not registered to vote, most of which are a younger demographic.
NextGen Climate, a political organization who aims to combat climate change, is trying to reduce the number of unregistered voters in California.
Workers and representatives of NextGen Climate were in the auditorium registering students and encouraging them to register their friends and families through social media.
ELAC caught the attention of Jokes for Votes for its diverse group of students and for being an underserved market.
Burke emphasized that the event is a fully nonpartisan campaign, and that “they have no stated goal outside of just getting students registered and getting them to the polls.”
For tour details, ticketing information,updates on locations, lineup and additional dates and stops, you can visit: www.jokesforvotes.com.
