Election Commission of India partners with Facebook to launch voter registration campaign for first time voters

With over 217 million people in India on Facebook, the Election Commission is partnering with Facebook to remind 18 year olds to register to vote. As part of this campaign, all users who turn 18 between 28th November and 31st December will receive a News Feed reminder with birthday wishes and also encouraging them to register with the Election Commission and on 30th November a reminder would besent to all those who have already turned 18 this year.

These voter registration reminders will be sent to newly eligible first time voters on Facebook in India. The reminder will be in 13 Indian languages - English, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi,Bengali, Urdu, Assamese, Marathi and Oriya. By clicking on the “Register Now" button, people will be directed to the National Voters’ Services Portal which will guide them through the registration process.

This is the first time Facebook's voter registration reminder has been rolled out across India keeping the first time voters in mind. This partnership is designed to support the ECI's ongoing campaign to register first time voters announced on November 15th by Election Commission of India. 

Achal Kumar Jyoti, Chief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of India, said "I amhappy to announce that the Election Commission of India has launched a Special Drive to enrol  all prospective and eligible young citizens of India as voters who are turning 18 years or more than 18 years on 1st January, 2018. This partnership of Election Commission with Facebook for the dissemination of Information will help usreach out the young digital Community of India in fulfilling our mission “No Voter to be Left Behind’’ and “Every Vote Counts”"

Nitin Saluja, Politics and Government Outreach Manager for India, South & Central Asia, Facebook, said, “People use Facebook to learn about, talk about, and get involved with the issues that matter to them.  We want to build products that support this type of civic engagement - on Election Day and every day.  Since the beginning of this year, millions of people in India have used Facebook to engage on elections, whether it's asking the candidates questions, sharing the latest news, or having a conversation about the issues with their friends and followers. Though our partnership with the Election Commission of India we hope to connectmore people with the issues that matter to them, and build a more civically-engaged community.”