Voter Registration via Facebook: What Civic Duty Should be Next?

Facebook and the state of Washington are teaming up to make civic engagement the "in" thing.

This week the Secretary of State Sam Reed's office announced the launch of a Facebook application that will allow Washington residents to register to vote, "like" the new voter application and recommend it to their social media friends, according to a story on The Huffington Post.

The application will be posted on the Washington Secretary of State Elections Division Facebook page, which is here: http://www.facebook.com/WashingtonStateElections

The application is expected to go live sometime next week, said Brian Zylstra, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of State told Patch. Washington will be the first state to offer voter registration via Facebook.

The Secretary of State Elections Division has been working with Microsoft and Facebook on this app since last fall, Zylstra said.

Washington state currently has 3,721,647 registered voters as of July 12, according to the Elections Division, and is hoping to gather even more through the launch of its Facebook application. Since the state began allowing voters to register online — Washington is one of more than a dozen states that also offer an online registration option —about  about 475,000 new registrations and updates have been processed since the system was launched in 2008, according to the Elections Division.

Online registration is a growing trend among younger voters, he said.

"So far this year, 32 percent of all voter registrations were done online, not counting those done on-site at the state's motor vehicle department. Voters under 34 account for 62 percent of online registrants, according to data covering 2010 and 2011," Zylstra said.

What other civic duties do you think should be on Facebook? Post your answers in our comments section.

On the web

Washington Elections Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/WashingtonStateElections