Washington to Allow Voter Registration Via Facebook Starting Next Week

Facebook and the state of Washington are teaming up to make civic engagement the "in" thing.

This week the Secretary of State's office announced the launch of a Facebook application that will allow Washington state residents to register to vote, "like" the new voter application and recommend it to their social media friends, according to a story from our sister site, The Huffington Post.

The application is expected to go live sometime next week, said Brian Zylstra, a spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary of State.

Washington will be the first state to offer voter registration via Facebook.

The Secretary of State Elections Division has been working with Microsoft and Facebook on this app since last fall, Zylstra said.

Washington had 3,721,647 registered voters as of July 12, according to the Elections Division, and is hoping to gather even more through the launch of its Facebook application. Since the state began allowing voters to register online — Washington is one of more than a dozen states that also offer an online registration option —about  about 475,000 new registrations and updates have been processed since the system was launched in 2008, according to the Elections Division.

Online registration is a growing trend among younger voters, he said.

"So far this year, 32 percent of all voter registrations were done online, not counting those done on-site at the state's motor vehicle department. Voters under 34 account for 62 percent of online registrants, according to data covering 2010 and 2011," Zylstra said.