Snapchat drives voter registration inside its app
Sign up to get a special filter that shows you've done your civic duty.
The November midterms are just weeks away, and following efforts from Instagram and Twitter to engage users in the voting process, Snapchat has now joined the fold. Starting today, all US Snapchat users aged 18+ will see a voter registration link on their user profile page. Tap it, and you'll be taken to a made-for-Snapchat TurboVote mobile site, where you can register to vote quickly and easily, as well as get all kinds of other info about the election. Team Snapchat will send a video message to all of its 18+ US users, encouraging them to sign up, and those that do get a special filter. Everything will be available in Spanish, too.
Like other platforms, Snapchat was also involved in the 2016 election, using targeted ads and creative tools to encourage young people to vote. But this is the first time Snapchat has coded registration directly into the app. Voter turnout for young people is historically low -- only 17.1 percent of 18-24 year olds voted in the 2014 midterms. However, this generation of young Americans are more politically-engaged than ever before. According to Harvard's latest youth poll, 37 percent of Americans under 30 indicated they would definitely be voting in this election. Hopefully the efforts of Snapchat and friends will help bump this number up even further.
