A Facebook notification on Monday reminding people to register to vote is likely having a real effect. The state said it brought in 15,000 newly registered voters on that day alone.
During a visit to the office of Secretary of the State Denise Merrill for an interview about the upcoming election, she and her staff were looking at new voter registration figures.
“That surge has been amazing, and probably the result of Facebook putting a posting on every Facebook page,” she said.
The state usually sees 3,000 or so new voter registrations a day around this time, Merrill said. After each Facebook posting, the numbers have been five times that.
“This is a first,” she said. “And we really didn’t realize the power of that push. Facebook put a posting up a couple of weeks ago for the first time and, again, in one day, we had 15,000 or 18,000 people register to vote.”
But Ethan Zukerman has some concern. He directs the Center for Civic Media at MIT.
“Companies like Facebook are now actively encouraging people to vote. And, on the one hand, that’s great. We want full participation in the democratic process,” he said. “We also know that efforts to mobilize voters tend to benefit the left, rather than tending to benefit the right -- particularly mobilization of voters through social media."
Zukerman also worries that, because social media sites know a lot about us, their efforts could be more calculated.
“What happens if Facebook decides to send that push only to people on the left?” he said. “Or only to people on the right? That would be an immense amount of power, given that company’s reach.”
However it plays out, Merrill said this year’s voter registration numbers are the highest they’ve ever been.
