Facebook has started a partnership with government of nations that will ensure citizens of countries are reminded of their civic responsibilities on the social media network.
One of the civic responsibilities Facebook would be reminding citizens of, is electoral responsibility that will have to do with reminding users of the social media platform to register to vote.
In April, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) began the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, while also distributing uncollected Permanent Voters Card (PVC).
In order to ensure all Nigerians of eligible age register to vote in the 2019 general elections, the electoral commission said the CVR exercise will run into the electoral year 2019.
But the commission has lamented that over 1.4 million PVCs are yet to be collected in Lagos state alone.
With the new Facebook development, electoral commissions of nations need not bother too much about reminding citizens to turn out for voters’ registration exercises.
India is the recent government to adopt this modality, as the Election Commission of India only just announced it will be using the Facebook platform to remind Indians to turn out for voters’ registration.
According to an official release, a notification of the ‘voter registration reminder’ will be sent on July 1 to Indians who are eligible to vote on Facebook.
The reminder will be sent out in 13 Indian languages – English, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Assamese, Marathi and Odia.
By clicking on the ‘register now’ button on Facebook, people will be directed to the national voters’ services portal of India which will guide them through the registration process.
“I am pleased to announce that the Election Commission is launching a special drive to enrol left out electors, with a special focus on first time electors.
“This is a step towards fulfilment of the motto of EC ‘No Voter to be Left Behind’,” Chief Election Commissioner, Nasim Zaidi said.
TheNewsGuru reports this is the first time Facebook has been used for enrolling new voters across India.