Is Washington State's Facebook Voter Registration Application a Danger to Democracy?

Should voter registration be entrusted to Facebook? According to the Associated Press, Washington State believes Facebook should be utilized to register new voters. Washington State has had online voter registration since 2008 and approximately 475,000 registrations or changes have been processed since the program's inception.

The big question is can Facebook be trusted to be part of the voting process? In 2009, a judge approved a $9.5 million dollar settlement over Facebook's Beacon program because of privacy issues. Last year, Facebook reached a privacy settlement with the FTC because of privacy problems. Within the past month, it appears that Facebook has agreed to pay approximately $20 million dollars because of privacy issues regarding its Sponsored Stories program.

While I applaud unique and creative ways to utilize social media, should Facebook be utilized to register to vote when it appears to have a problem with protecting its users' privacy?

To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.

Copyright 2012 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.