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Facebook Launches '08 Voter Registration Tool

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November 14, 2007 4:16 PM

ABC News' Jacqueline Klingebiel Reports: Haven't registered to vote in the 2008 elections? Beware: Your friends may have a say in that.

In an effort to increase voter turnout, especially among young adults, Facebook, the popular social networking website, and Rock The Vote have launched a new Facebook application that offers a direct link for users to register to vote.

"You can leverage these social connections through utilities like Facebook to drive politics in a very traditional way," said Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Facebook during a New Politics Institute conference on "Social Networking Tools in Politics" Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

The new application, called 2008 U.S. Voter Registration, asks users whether or not they have registered to vote. If they have, the user can make a pledge to promise to vote and will be sent a reminder to vote on election day. If not, they are directed to a voter registration link.

Once a user registers to vote, the users' social network is informed via the Facebook newsfeed, along with a link to a voter registration site.

"Politics has always been about social networking," Kelly said, "We've made it a lot easier to reach a lot of people a lot more effectively through their friends."

It's one of several new applications Facebook has developed geared toward increasing turnout in the general election in 2008, Kelly said.

Facebook and Rock The Vote hopes the new application will allow users to influence their peers to register and vote.

MySpace, a social networking website, is developing a similar effort in driving voter registration through their "Declare Yourself" tool available on their site.

November 14, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

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User Comments

Great, this will help Ron Paul the most. Vote for liberty, freedom, and restore habeas corpus.

Posted by: glmeadors | Nov 15, 2007 1:32:20 AM

FYI, the application you reference "2008 U.S. Voter Registration" was not written by Facebook or Rock the Vote.

Posted by: 2008 U.S. Voter Registration | Nov 18, 2007 6:39:16 PM

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