I'm a voter: Facebook and Twitter launch buttons to allow people to share that their ballot has been cast

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Over a million people have already shared on Facebook that they’re voting, using a special button the site has installed to allow people to tell their friends that they’ve cast their ballot. Twitter has also instituted a special “hashflag” that allows people to post that they’ve voted with a special picture.

Hundreds of thousands of people per hour are pressing Facebook’s “I’m a voter” button. Doing so sends a message to all of that person’s friends, which can be clicked on to reveal more information about how to vote and who has voted.

The button doesn’t require people to say who they voted for. But when clicking the button, users can add extra information either to share who they chose or to urge their friends to vote too.

Facebook’s data shows a huge surge around 8am, as voting opened. The numbers flagged a little into mid-morning, but still showed that nearly 200,000 people per hour were clicking the button.

The group most commonly using the button is women aged 25-34. But the distribution across ages and genders is still fairly evenly shared.

Facebook hopes that allowing people to easily tell friends that they have voted will mean that turnout will increase. The button has already been used in the last three US elections, the EU parliamentary election, the Scottish independence referendum and the Indian election — in all cases the button increased turnout, and reached 31 million people.

In the US election in 2010, 300,000 extra voters turned up to the polls because they had seen the button, Facebook has said citing a study in scientific journal Nature.

Twitter has added a similar feature, making a special button for #IVoted. When users tweet those words, a special “hashflag” appears, putting a little box next to the letters.