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Using Facebook’s “Social Graph” to Register Voters

Voter registration efforts typically rely on a great deal of labor and community outreach. Barack Obama’s massive spring and summer registration effort will likely rely primarily on card tables and paper forms.

But the University of Washington students behind the new Facebook application Your Revolution are working a different angle. By comparing a user’s friend list to their state’s voter registration rolls, this application seeks to determine who isn’t registered to vote. It then gives users the opportunity to send an invitation to their friends to register to vote online:

The app features a sophisticated and well-designed interface and encourages users to participate in a voter registration contest.

Unfortunately, this app only works in states that allow online voter registration. But as more states roll out online registration, I think you’ll see applications like this getting real pickup.

I’m still waiting for the day when we can use a social application to actually vote. Imagine ballots spreading like wildfire among people my age the way that viral videos do. Youth turnout would be through the roof.

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