A new Facebook app called?Vote With Friends?has just been released and its sole purpose is to create voting advocacy among Facebook users and the friends they influence.
The app was created by internet advocacy group?Fight For the Future?and it allows users to check whether or not their friends on Facebook are registered to vote or whether they have pledge to register. The program also tells users if their friends actually went and voted on election day.
According to Mashable:
“The idea? Take Facebook?s ?Poke? concept, and use it to bring a little positive peer pressure into democratic participation”
Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder and co-director of Fight for the Future says of the?Vote With Friends?app:
?We think [voting] is essential to what makes a vibrant democracy. Especially in the United States, we?re seeing that what your fiends are asking you to do actually affects whether or not you go vote. If that?s a part of voting in America, we should absolutely have the ability to do that online.?
The app uses the Votizen API which is based on public voter data collection.
The hope is that friends will nag one another to vote, thus creating stronger voting numbers. The app could be most beneficial to the Democrats as study’s have shown higher social media use among that group of voters.
You can search for?Vote With Friends?on Facebook if you want to take part in the advocacy program.
