Facebook Has Its Own Get-Out-the-Vote Message

Facebook wants its users in the United States to vote this Election Day — and it plans to put a reminder Tuesday at the top of the news feed of each of its American users of voting age.

Unlike previous election years, in which Facebook experimented with different messages to see how that affected turnout, this time the message will be the same for everyone, according to a company spokesman, Michael Buckley.

Virtually every American logging on to Facebook on Tuesday — roughly 100 million people — will see a reminder that it’s Election Day, a guide to local polling places and a button that says, “I’m a Voter.” If you click on the button, your status as a voter will be shared with your friends (although just like anything else you share, it will have to duke it out with all the other postings competing for a spot in their news feed).

In the 2010 election, similar nudging by Facebook resulted in 340,000 additional votes nationwide. The company’s get-out-the-vote efforts in 2012 were more erratic, hampered by software bugs and various test options.

The company angered users earlier this year after it published research in which it manipulated the emotional tone of half a million users’ news feeds to see how that affected their subsequent posts.

Facebook’s get-out-the-vote tests have come under scrutiny because of the company’s potential to sway elections if it were to selectively urge voters in certain areas and not others to vote.

Mr. Buckley said the company believed that encouraging people to vote is an important contribution to civic life.

“We have learned over the past few years that people are more likely to vote when they are reminded on Facebook and they see that their friends have voted,” he said. “Our effort is neutral — while we encourage any and all candidates, groups, and voters to use our platform to engage on the elections, we as a company have not used our products in a way that attempts to influence how people vote.”

So far this year, Facebook said, the “I’m a Voter” button has been shown in 10 national elections, including those in India, Brazil and Indonesia, to everyone on Facebook in those countries.

Given the low participation in the 2010 midterm elections, anything that can get more people to the polls will probably make the election results more representative of the population’s wishes. Only about 42 percent of the eligible voting-age population cast a ballot in 2010, according to data compiled by Michael P. McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida.

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