Facebook will begin reminding people to register to vote next week, a campaign that could drive turnout and influence the outcome of the election.
Those reminders have worked on a smaller scale, as 200,000 people registered in California after receiving a notice from Facebook in May. The reminders will be neutral in content, but direct people to a federal website that helps navigate the voter registration process in each state, according to USA Today.
“We thought we had a unique ability and responsibility to show people this reminder that they should be checking their registration so they can participate in the election,” Katie Harbath, Facebook’s director of government outreach Katie Harbath told USA Today.
Although Facebook’s reminders won’t be advocating for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the drive could help liberal causes by driving turnout among millennials, who generally vote less consistently than older people.
Clinton has struggled to maintain the support of millennials throughout her career. They propelled Barack Obama to victory in 2008 and helped Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders turn the Democratic primaries this year into a dogfight. Polling data shows that they prefer Clinton to Trump by wide margins — she led by 24 points in a national Quinnipiac poll in August — but that lead has shrunk to five points as young voters have defected to more liberal third-party candidates.
“[M]illennials may not adore Clinton, but they really, really hate Trump. Six in 10 young voters view him “strongly” unfavorably, and the same share describe him as ‘racist,'” the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell suggested. “Don’t be surprised if their third-party crushes start to fade as the prospect of President Trump begins to feel all too terrifyingly real.”
