Skip to main content

Did you register to vote? Chances are good that Facebook played a role

glassdoor best places to work facebook sign feat
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Clicktivism has evolved into action.

According to election officials, Facebook has driven “substantial increases” in voter registration numbers the country over, and all it took was a 17-word reminder. Back in September, the social media giant began placing messages atop the News Feeds of users aged 18 and over, urging them to register online.

The message was simple — “Are you registered to vote? Register now to make sure you have a voice in the election,” the message read. Also attached to the reminder were two links: one to a federal directory of state voter registration websites, and the other inviting users to share that they’d already registered.

For four days, Facebook-ers across the nation saw the call to action, and as the New York Times reports, “at least nine secretaries of state have credited the social network’s voter registration reminder … with boosting sign-ups, in some cases by considerable amounts.”

Just call Facebook your third (and most influential) parent.

“Facebook clearly moved the needle in a significant way,” Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, said in an interview on Tuesday. In Padilla’s state alone, nearly 125,000 visited California’s online registry to on the first day Facebook launched the reminder. This represented the fourth-greatest number of registrations in a single day in the site’s history. And in Minnesota, Facebook helped break the state’s online voter registration record, with more people than ever before signing up to vote in a single week than ever before.

It’s worth noting that those who were motivated to sign up likely tended to lean Democratic, with Padilla pointing out, “It’s pretty clear that the Facebook reminder campaign disproportionately motivated young people to register.” Facebook also boasts more female than male users, which also will likely work in Hillary Clinton’s favor come November.

All the same, it’s the thought that counts, said Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, who is a republican. In a statement given in September, Kemp said, “I applaud Facebook for joining our efforts to increase voter registration awareness.”

Editors' Recommendations

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
WhatsApp now lets you add short video messages to chats
WhatsApp logo on a phone.

You can now send short video messages in a WhatsApp chat, Meta announced on Thursday.

A video message can last for up to 60 seconds long and is protected with end-to-end encryption.

Read more
Musk shows off new X sign on top of San Francisco HQ, but the city’s not happy
The new X sign replacing the Twitter logo on the company's headquarters in San Francisco.

Soon after Elon Musk tweeted a drone video showing a new white light in the shape of an X atop the company’s headquarters in San Francisco on Friday, the Associated Press (AP) reported that the city had decided to launch in investigation over concerns that the sign's installation may have broken rules.

The X logo is replacing the iconic Twitter bird as Musk continues efforts to rebrand the social media platform that he acquired in October.

Read more
Threads has lost half its users, according to Meta chief Zuckerberg
Instagram Threads app.

Meta’s Threads app looks set for an uphill climb if it’s ever to take the microblogging crown from Twitter, which is currently being rebranded as X.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently told employees that despite its impressive start in early July when around 100 million people activated a Threads account in its first five days of availability, more than half of those users have stopped checking in.

Read more