Snap Commemorates National Voter Registration Day With Registration In The App

Snapchat is launching its largest voter registration effort to date, building voter registration into an app that reaches millions of users who are eligible to vote in the midterm elections.

The ephemeral messaging app will provide its users age 18 and older with voter registration link from their user profile page. This link takes the user directly to a voter registration page.

“Voting is one of the most important forms of self-expression we have, and we’re committed to empowering our community to register and vote for their chosen representatives,” said Jennifer Stout, Snap’s global head of public policy.

Snapchat is one of several social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to team up with TurboVote on a registration drive. TurboVote’s technology streamlines the process for voter registration and obtaining absentee ballots in all 50 states.

The messaging platform was popular with presidential candidates hoping to reach millennial voters during the 2016 elections.

This is the first time Snap has built voter registration into the app. The company will send a message to all of its 18 and older users to encourage registration. Its media partners, including the Washington Post, NowThis, Mic, Vice, Refinery29, Mitu, Cheddar and Good Luck America, will encourage civic participation.

Snap could be a potentially potent vehicle for reaching 18- to 24-year-olds, a group with historically low voter turnout during midterm elections. Snapchat reaches as many as 30 million people in this age group, according to publicly available figures.