Creativity Now, Results Later.
On November 3rd, the United States citizens will be allowed to act on the 19th amendment and vote to elect the President of the United States. This will be the first election that I will be able to vote in, so I have been actively trying to educate myself on the candidates and the process in general. One thing that I have noticed this year as opposed to the last few elections has been the eagerness of others urging people to go vote. Obviously, this is encouraged in every Presidential election, but I have seen more social media posts, commercials, and posters that show the exact steps to register and participate in the voting process. One example of this comes from the social media platform of Snapchat.
In an article from the Verge, Snapchat has reportedly registered more than 400,000 U.S. citizens to vote in this upcoming election. (https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/15/21437935/snapchat-voter-voting-registration-barack-obama-app-facebook) Snapchat first created this affordance in 2018, but it did not generate the momentum and popularity that has happened this year, likely because the elections in 2018 did not involve the president. This type of action by Snapchat is outstanding because their app is used in large majority by the younger generation and providing an outlet for Millennials and Generation Z to fulfill their civic duty. This unique idea by Snapchat has made other platforms follow suit and create avenues for users to register to vote or provide instructions on how to vote in their prospective state. The article by the Verge quotes Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg saying, “[Facebook] hopes to register 4 million people by Election Day” (Kelly, 2020). Snapchat has also planned on having former President Barrack Obama, John Kasicch, and Snoop Dogg give public service announcements on the platform to advice users of the option to register on the app. I think it is important that Snapchat got members of both political parties (Obama and Kasich) to give announcements to not promote any bias or encourage any sway in the user’s mind.
Personally, I believe that the younger generations are more involved in this election process than ever before because of the simple and constant reminders to register. In an article by Americanprogress.org that was published in 2017, they insisted on making the registration process easier and more effective because so many citizens were sitting on the bench during the election process. (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/07/11/453319/increasing-voter-participation-america/) The point of a democracy is to let the citizens make the decision of who will lead the nation and if a large majority is not participating then there is a problem. Danielle Root and Liza Kennedy write, “When people exercise their power as voters, they can elect local, state, and national leaders who are responsive to and reflective of the communities they serve” (Root and Kennedy, 2017). I think it is interesting to read an article calling out for an easier process and then see an overwhelming push by social media platforms contribute to helping our citizens participate.
Knowing that registering does not equate to voting, it is encouraging to see the statistics behind the registration throughout the country. Roni Molla wrote an article for Vox, explaining how this has been a record setting year for voting registration. Molla includes that voter enthusiasm is extremely high this year as compared to years past. (https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/16/21517898/voter-registration-turnout-presidential-election-2020) A graph by the Pew Research Center in the article indicates that 83 percent of registered voters claimed that this election will have a big impact and is important, which is the highest calculated percent ever recorded in the surveys 20 years of existence.
I think it is fascinating that most people are doing their part in this upcoming election and I hope that this type of behavior is encouraged in the future. Also, the process of being involved in the election should continue to be more applicable to citizens and hopefully companies can have the savviness and creativity that Snapchat had when they created their registration affordance.
