Georgia sees huge spike in voter registration thanks to Facebook

WASHINGTON — Your Facebook feed this time of year has likely become as cluttered with politics as TV commercial breaks or cable news.%

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But Facebook says that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Channel 2’s Justin Gray learned Wednesday that a simple post by the social media giant about voter registration has led to massive spikes in registration across the country.

In the post, Facebook asked the question: Are you registered to vote?

“I think it’s good to have that reminder,” voter Amber Stehlek said.

Amber and Daniel Stehlek told Gray that the reminder was just what they needed to get them to register.

“We'd moved recently, so we had to register in our new precinct,” Daniel Stehlek told Gray.

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Facebook believes that more than 2 million new voters were registered in the primary and general elections this year because of the new alert on users' home pages.

With a click, it linked to online registration and voter registration sites in every state.

“Our platform has really become a new town hall. We're where this conversation is happening,” Facebook’s Katie Harbath said.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp told Gray that there was a 2,255 percent increase in the number of hits on its online voter registration page on the day Facebook posted the reminder, compared to the same day a year ago.

While this was the first year that Facebook sent out the voter registration alerts, it's been reminding users to vote on Election Day since 2008.

Facebook said users will once again get that notification on Nov. 8.

Cox Media Group