"In this age of social media and more people going online for services, this is a natural way to introduce people to online registration and leverage the power of friends on Facebook to get more people registered," said Shane Hamlin, the state’s co-director of elections, reported The Seattle Times.
Washington state has had online voter registration since 2008, one of less than 20 states to offer that service, and it will be the first state to offer a Facebook method for registering to vote, Hamlin said.
The application requires the user to allow it permission to use his or her name and date of birth, and the user must provide a driver’s license or state identification card number, just as in other voter registration processes. The information collected will be given to the application and the state, not Facebook, Hamlin said.