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Social Proof to Increase Voter Turnout

October 5th, 2022 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips, Increase Voter Turnout, Product Development

Social Proof to Increase Voter Participation

New to social proof? For a full description, visit social proof on Wikipedia, but in a nutshell it may be defined as “…a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.” It’s a concept that may be used to increase voter turnout, and a feature of Skypunch’s REST API helps you do just that. The API method is the Get Ballot Count and does exactly as the name implies and provides a near real-time count of ballots associated with a particular election. Social proof kicks in when this count is displayed on your website as a way of demonstrating to visitors, many of whom are also presumably eligible voters, that others are exemplifying correct behavior and fulfilling their obligation to vote, and they should too.

How it works

The ballot counter is part of the Skypunch API (Application Programming Interface) documented at REST API Documentation then look for the heading Get Ballot Count under the API methods. The web service returns the number of ballots cast in an election which may then be output to a web page as the following example shows.

683 voters have voted in our Annual Board Election. Please join them and vote now!

For more pointers on how to increase voter participation, see the following:

    •    18 Tips to Increase Voter Turnout
    •    3 Tips for Linking to the Ballot
    •    Ignite Your Voter Turnout