Making voting go viral: New Facebook tool debuts in Kansas

You may have noticed something a little different in your Facebook feed Monday and Tuesday – a reminder to get out and vote in the 4th District special election.

Or, you may have noticed that more of your friends are posting that they voted Tuesday.

The reason is that Facebook is rolling out a new tool to remind people of local elections in their area. It builds off an earlier effort to remind voters about national elections.

“This will be the first time we’ve shown these at the local level (mayoral, city council, state representative, etc),” Facebook spokesman Alec Gerlach said in an e-mail. “Local elections are among the most consequential elections in people’s day-to-day lives, but the turnout is very low.”

In addition to reminders at the top of your news feed, Facebook is trying to make local voting go more viral by making it easy for people to share that they’re voting, he said.

The new tool includes two buttons to click: One says “See election info” and takes you to a government website where you can get more information on where and how to vote; the other allows people to easily share with their friends when they vote.

This story was originally published April 11, 2017 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Making voting go viral: New Facebook tool debuts in Kansas."