Online youth hngout MySpace has teamed up with the non-partisan group Declare Yourself to launch a voter-registration drive aimed at MySpace users and engage them in both civic and political processes. Voter registration information is available in both English and Spanish.
“Declare Yourself’s research shows that young Americans are hungering to participate more in our democratic process, and the Internet empowers them to do that in a meaningful way through information, connectivity and the tools to become more active citizens, ” said Norman Lear, Declare Yourself’s founder. “We are thrilled to be working closely with MySpace to help energize its users and give them a voice in the November election and beyond.”
“MySpace’s reach offers us an extraordinary opportunity to give millions of Americans, especially first-time voters, easy access to the political process,” said Chris DeWolfe, chief executive officer of MySpace. “By partnering with Declare Yourself, we are continuing to empower our online community to make a positive impact on offline communities across the country.”
U.S. mid-term elections will be held November 7, making MySpace a rather late entry to the voter-registration game—in many jurisdictions, voters must register in the next one or two weeks to be eligible to vote this time around. But given the fast pace of MySpace activity, its possible the MySpace community will enable many first time voters to regiester and participate in the process. The tools available via MySpace enable users to enter their ZIP code and generate a PDF file which can be printed and mailed to state election officials.
