Today, HeadCount announced that hundreds of our partner musicians will help roll out “HelloVote,” a new technology that allows anyone to register to vote via text message or Facebook Messenger. All you have to do is text “COUNT” to 384-387 to start registering.
More than 200 musicians including Mac Miller, Wilco, Panic! At the Disco, Jack Johnson, Killer Mike, Ani DiFranco, Lil Dicky, The Indigo Girls, Michael Franti and members of The Grateful Dead will make social media posts next Tuesday, September 27th in support of National Voter Registration Day.
Each social media post will also feature a photo of the artist holding up HeadCount’s “Register to Vote Now” clipboards.
The campaign – a celebration of the annual “National Voter Registration Day” – will have a social media reach of more than 200 million followers, and use the “VoterRegistrationDay” hashtag.
“We’ve known for many years that music is the best way to reach Millennials and unregistered voters,” said Andy Bernstein, HeadCount’s executive director. “We also know that text message is how young people prefer to communicate, so this brings all of that together.”
The groundbreaking HelloVote mobile voter registration technology was developed by Fight for the Future, a nonpartisan non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and expanding the Internet’s transformative power. It is the first tool that allows voters to register over text message or Facebook, in just a minute. It is also integrated with 20 different states’ online voter registration platform, making it the only technology that allows for true online voter registration in a variety of states.
HelloVote uses SMS and chat bot technology to enable voters to register on Facebook Messenger or on any cell phone or tablet, even a flip phone. A full 96% of Americans have a cell phone, which means nearly every American can use HelloVote to register.