As Twitter emojis become ubiquitous, it was only a matter of time before the service treated us to an official election tie-in emoticon. As luck would have it, Twitter just revealed its first such symbol, days before the beginning of the presidential race 2016, which officially kicks off on February 1 with the Iowa caucuses.
The emoji, described as a digital version of the iconic “I Voted” sticker, became available at noon ET today. It features a red tick in a blue box and, like previous Twitter emojis, and can be activated using a hashtag, in this case #iVoted or #iCaucased.
“We wanted to give people that same, fun opportunity to wear the badge on their page to say, ‘I got involved today… I participated in the process,'” Adam Sharp, Twitter’s head of news, government and elections, told Mashable.
Sharp claims that in the company’s ten-year long history it has evolved into a “staple of American politics.” Twitter is reportedly reaching out to presidential campaigns and secretaries of state to help promote the new emoji. The #iVoted emoji is set to remain active throughout the 2016 primaries and general election, with more political emojis to be revealed at a later date.
Perhaps we’ll even get to see more candidate-focused emojis, like the ones recently introduced by the Moji Keyboard app for iOS. In the past, Twitter has introduced emojis in conjunction with events on and off the platform, including the COP21 climate change summit last year, a Star Wars cast Q&A, and sporting events such as the Rugby World Cup 2015.
Sharp insists we won’t be seeing any additional emojis during the primaries, meaning some of the current candidates won’t get their own personal icons. In the future, however, we may be treated to unique emojis for the general election participants.
