It seems every four years, when there’s a new president being decided in the US, the big topic is getting everyone registered to vote and actually getting everyone out there to vote. It’s been no different this year as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton race to the White House. Google had a small pop-up on their home page yesterday, urging users to register to vote, as the deadline to register is this week in many States. Facebook also did something similar, posting a reminder at the top of their news feed, so that everyone that logged in would see the reminder to either register or update their voter registration.
Having this reminder on Facebook’s news feed obviously was a big deal for the company, and urged a lot of users to register to vote, or update their registration. In face, many States saw near-record numbers for those signing up. Which is important, especially for a presidential election. The first day that the reminder was on their site, the State of California saw 123,279 people register or update their voter registration. That was the fourth-highest daily total in the history of their voter registration website. It wasn’t just California either, as Minnesota, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington all saw some pretty big surges in the number of users registering to vote.
If you haven’t registered to vote yet, it’s likely too late, but Florida has extended the deadline due to Hurricane Matthew. It’s important to register to vote and then to be sure to hit the polls on November 8th, as this election could shape up the future of the country for the next 4, 8, 10 even 20 years. If you’re undecided about who to vote for, there’s still one more debate left on October 19th, which should help make up your mind. But there’s also just under a month before polls open, and both the Clinton and Trump campaign will be doing everything in their power to persuade you to vote for them. It’s a pretty big decision, and opting not to vote shouldn’t be an option, as one of these two will be in charge of the US come January.