--- title: Teen Uses Popeye Chicken Sandwiches Line to Register Voters description: A resourceful high school activist used the long lines for Popeye's viral chicken sandwich to encourage customers to vote. canonical: https://time.com/5662536/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-lines/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-08-27T15:48:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:00:04.979Z og:title: Enterprising Teen Uses Popeye's Line to Register Voters og:description: Here's how he used a viral moment for good og:url: https://time.com/5662536/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-lines/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ec956c3cb8a2d09/698a01ff09208fa74b41573b/voter-registration-popeyes-line.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Burger King Parent Restaurants International Acquires Popeyes For $1.8 Billion og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Enterprising Teen Uses Popeye's Line to Register Voters twitter:description: Here's how he used a viral moment for good twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ec956c3cb8a2d09/698a01ff09208fa74b41573b/voter-registration-popeyes-line.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # High School Activist Uses the Long Lines for Popeye's Chicken Sandwich to Register Voters > Sponsored content. 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(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) MIAMI, FL - FEBRUARY 21: A Popeyes restaurant is seen on February 21, 2017 in Miami, Florida. Burger King and Tim Horton's owner Restaurant Brands International has announced plans on buying Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in a deal valued at $1.8 billion. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Joe Raedle—Getty Images  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Aug 27, 2019 3:48 PM UTC While the viral debate over whether or not [Popeye’s has the best chicken sandwich](https://time.com/5659913/popeyes-and-chick-fil-a-memes/) is still raging online, a high school activist is using the long lines at the fast food chain for good. David Ledbetter, a high school senior in Charlotte, North Carolina, used the long lines at Popeye’s this weekend to remind people to vote, going so far as to hand out sample ballots and voter registration forms outside of his local Popeye’s. In an interview with [_CNN_](https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/26/us/popeyes-teen-voter-registration-trnd/index.html), Ledbetter explained that he saw the chicken sandwich wars as a way to engage people to do their civic duty. “We were seeing how long the lines were \[at Popeyes\] and figured we would try to go get individuals to vote,” he said. “I was just hoping that the individuals would register to vote.” Ledbetter teamed up with Stephanie Sneed, a local attorney who’s running for one of Charlotte’s school boards, to bring the voter engagement project at Popeye’s to life. “We had been talking about the great chicken sandwich debate,” she said. “We came up with the idea to go to Popeyes because of the large number of people waiting in lines.” The initiative was successful, with Ledbetter, Sneed and others running out of voter forms and pamphlets. This is hardly the first time that Ledbetter has given back to his community; he’s already co-founded a local organization called [_Imagine This_](https://www.instagram.com/imaginethis2018/), whose goal is to make college more accessible to students in Charlotte. “I like engaging with the community and I have aspirations with helping people and making society a better as a whole,” he said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5662536/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-lines/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5662536/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-lines/"},"headline":"High School Activist Uses the Long Lines for Popeye's Chicken Sandwich to Register Voters","datePublished":"2019-08-27T15:48:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:00:04.979Z","description":"Here's how he used a viral moment for good","url":"https://time.com/5662536/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-lines/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ec956c3cb8a2d09/698a01ff09208fa74b41573b/voter-registration-popeyes-line.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ec956c3cb8a2d09/698a01ff09208fa74b41573b/voter-registration-popeyes-line.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Burger King Parent Restaurants International Acquires Popeyes For $1.8 Billion","caption":"Burger King Parent Restaurants International Acquires Popeyes For $1.8 Billion","creditText":"Joe Raedle—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5662536/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-lines/","name":"High School Activist Uses the Long Lines for Popeye's Chicken Sandwich to Register Voters"}}]}] ```