Vote.org: T. Swift’s political post causes large spike in voter registration

There was a significant increase in voter registration after Taylor Swift posted her political views on social media, according to Vote.org, the website she encouraged fans to visit.

Numbers had spiked both nationally and in Swift’s home state of Tennessee after the singer’s post Sunday on Instagram, Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for the nonprofit Vote.org, told news outlets.

“We are up to 65,000 registrations in a single 24-hour period since T. Swift’s post,” Guthrie said.

To compare, 190,178 new voters were registered on Vote.org nationwide during September and 56,669 in August.

In the post, Swift endorsed Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper. They are running for the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively.

The star said that while she had been “reluctant” to voice her political opinions in the past, “due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.”

“I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country,” Swift said. “I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. “

I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love. Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values. For a lot of us, we may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100% on every issue, but we have to vote anyway. So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting! 🗳😃🌈

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Oct 7, 2018 at 4:33pm PDT

Swift, who has 112 million followers on Instagram, encouraged her fans to register to vote.

“So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do,” the singer wrote. “October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info.”

Guthrie said traffic to her organization increased after Swift’s post, with 155,940 unique visitors coming to Vote.org in the 24 hours following, compared to the average number of daily users of 14,078.

The number of new voters in Tennessee also spiked, she said, with 2,144 signing up in the more than a day since Swift’s encouragement. That number is close to the entire amount of new registrations in the state for the month of September which was 2,811.