Tinder’s ‘Swipe the Vote’ campaign aims to educate young voters and get them to polls

Tinder has partnered with nonprofit Rock the Vote for a second time, in the hopes of driving young people to the polls through in-app messaging. The company claims a young adult user base where more than half are in the 18 to 24 demographic, and believes it’s well-positioned to mobilize younger voters during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.

It’s critical to get these voters to the polls, as only 46.1 percent of the 18 to 29-year olds turned out to vote during the 2016 election, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the company notes.

Tinder says it will begin to share “fun facts” with its users during election season right in the app — like the volumes of voter registrations and other anecdotes related to past and upcoming elections. These facts will have a particular focus on those that are of most interest to Tinder’s younger users.

For example, some that will be shared include: “Did you know that only about 40% of eligible voters turn up for the midterm elections?,” and “Even though millennials make up 25% of the population, they make up less than 5% of state legislatures,” plus, “The average American is twenty years younger than their congressional representative.”

The facts will pop up in the app as often as two to three times a week in the U.S. as a “Swipe the Vote” native display card.

These cards will also include a way to tap to navigate in-app to the Rock the Vote website, where users can enter their ZIP code and details in order to register to vote.

Additionally, the two organizations also produced a Schoolhouse Rock!-inspired video encouraging young Americans to vote. (Though the Schoolhouse Rock reference may fly over the 18-year-olds’ heads.)

Tinder isn’t the only large platform participating in National Voter Registration Day today (September 25).

Others, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat, Lyft, HBO and many more have also rolled out their own campaigns in an effort to mobilize and register voters.

But because of Tinder’s access to a very young group of potential voters, it’s one of the more interesting efforts to watch, along with Snapchat.

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