Washington State Becomes First To Allow Voter Registration By Facebook

Everyone in the country should vote. It's a civic duty, and more importantly, you never have any right to complain about the government unless you took the time to actually cast a vote. But do you even know how to register to vote? If you happen to live in Washington state, that is no longer an excuse, as long as you have a Facebook account.

The home state of Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Nintendo of America has become the first in the nation to allow citizens to become registered voters in a way that's up-to-date with the current technology. Facebook teamed up with Microsoft to create a secure application that lets users submit voter registrations through the social networking site, on the state's official secretary of state Facebook page.

Users simply need to enter their name, birthdate, and driver license number. And if you're worried about that data going through Facebook's servers, don't. "Once you start the process, you're no longer entering data on Facebook. Facebook is not collecting any of the data," said Washington co-director of elections Shane Hamlin in a Reuters interview. Other plans are already in process in California, Oregon, and Nevada.

[via Chicago Tribune]