Election Commission of India and Facebook join hands to conduct first time voter registration

ELECTION Commission of India has partnered with social networking giant Facebook to conduct a voter registration campaign for the first time voters in the country. As part of this campaign, a reminder will be sent to newly eligible first time voters on Facebook in India to encourage them to register with the Election Commission.

All users who turn 18 between November 28 and December 31 will receive a News Feed reminder with birthday wishes. Also, a reminder would be sent to all those who have already turned 18 this year on November 30, said the company in a statement.

This reminder will be in 13 Indian languages including English, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Urdu, Assamese, Marathi and Oriya. There will be an option of "Register Now", where the users will be directed to the National Voters' Services Portal. This portal will further guide them through the registration process.

Commenting on this partnership, Nitin Saluja, Politics and Government Outreach Manager for India, South & Central Asia, 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 connect more people with the issues that matter to them, and build a more civically-engaged community.”

A similar campaign happened back in June, where newly eligible voters were asked to register on ECI’s website. Similarly, such reminders have been rolled out in partnership with chief electoral officers during the State elections of 2016 and 2017.