Washington State To Allow Voter Registration Over Facebook

An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press reports that the state of Washington will soon have an application available on its Facebook page that will let residents register to vote. Washington and other states already allow online registration, but this is the first time it will be allowed over Facebook. The state's co-director of elections, Shane Hamlin, said, 'In this age of social media and more people going online for services, this is a natural way to introduce people to online registration and leverage the power of friends on Facebook to get more people registered.' Facebook won't have access to the State's database, and Hamlin says Facebook won't collect any of the personal information with which it interacts."

Comments

Re:Lovely

[jpate]

The people who will go to an election no matter what are the radicals.

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal" —Emma Goldman

Re:Getting people out to vote in the US is a good.

[acidfast7]

What is this, the 1600s again, every citizen (within reason) has a RIGHT to vote, it's not a PRIVILEGE reserved for those not disenchanted/disenfranchised. People have the RIGHT to vote based on nothing of substance. Personally, I think every citizen has a RESPONSIBILITY to vote.

Voting gives people a chance to feel that they have the power to make a difference in who makes decisions ... and that makes all the difference because it holds the elected accountable. Low voter turnout suggests to the elected that they need only cater to a smaller portion of their constituents to be re-elected. Low voter turnout, and having an outdated two-party system with a similarly outdated electoral college, has caused a lot of problems with the policy of the US government. For example, having a few Pirate Party members in Senate/House would prevent a lot of the "copyright-based" complaints on ./