Today marks National Voter Registration Day – a massive nationwide and non-partisan effort to register voters well in advance of Election Day this November. At Snap, we’ve always believed that one of the most powerful forms of self-expression is exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy.
Every day on our app, we see the Snapchat Generation show incredible passion, creativity and innovation that’s helping make the world a better place. We want to do everything we can to remove the barriers that have historically kept younger voters from showing up to vote and empower future generations to speak out and make their voices heard.
That’s why earlier this month, we launched new mobile tools that will help first-time and young voters register to vote directly in our app, learn about their voting options and the issues and candidates on their ballot and make a plan to vote. Across all of these tools, Snapchat is focused on empowering users to do the kind of 1:1 outreach with their friends that they might traditionally do on university campuses, making calls or knocking on doors.
Today we’re proud to partner with renowned artist Mark Bradford on a new augmented reality Lens to encourage our community to register to vote. We reach more 13–24-year-olds in the US than Facebook, Instagram and Messenger combined – and a majority are of voting age. In fact, of the 100 million Snapchatters in the US, 80% are 18+.
This new lens applies the artist’s signature abstract painting style to a face mask emblazoned with the word “Vote”, and features a button that takes Snapchatters directly to our voter registration tool. This goal of translating ideas into action through abstract painting, which Bradford’s practice combines with social engagement elements, has been a consistent focus for the artist since the early 2000s. Over the course of his career, Bradford’s work has elevated critical social themes, including racial justice and equity, women’s rights and police brutality – and we’re incredibly honoured that he is bringing his powerful talent to Snapchat.
Our community has already shown great enthusiasm for our new voter registration tools – as of Monday, Snapchat has helped more than 750,000 register to vote through the app in 2020.
Snap has a strong record when it comes to voter registration – in the 2018 mid-term elections, the company helped well over 400,000 Snapchatters register to vote, and 57% of them actually voted. To help them turn out this cycle, Snapchat will remind users who have registered about key voting deadlines in their states, messages reminding users to make a plan to vote, a voter checklist available in their user profile and resources from civic partners in their Voter Guide.