Voter Registration Spikes After Taylor Swift’s Political Post

Can you imagine only bothering to go out and vote because a celebrity told you to do so? I can’t, but there are a helluva lot of people who can.

Vote.org told BuzzFeed News that the number of registrations has skyrocketed since Taylor Swift posted her political spiel.

“We are up to 65,000 registrations in a single 24-hour period since T. Swift’s post,” said Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for Vote.org.

For context, 190,178 new voters were registered nationwide in the entire month of September, while 56,669 were registered in August.

Holy crap. That’s a lot. Her home state of Tennessee also saw a significant jump.

“Vote.org saw [Tennessee] registrations spike specifically since Taylor’s post,” Guthrie said. The organization has received 5,183 in the state so far this month — at least 2,144 of which were in the last 36 hours, she said, up from 2,811 new Tennessee voter registrations for the entire month of September and just 951 in August.

Guthrie said the site had also seen a big jump in the number of visitors since Swift’s post, with 155,940 unique visitors in the last 24 hours — second only to the number of people who visited on National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25 when there were 304,942 unique visitors. (The average daily user count for the site is 14,078 in 2018.)

“Thank God for Taylor Swift,” said Guthrie.

I’m glad people are more inspired to participate, but I’m also legitimately concerned, because I can only assume that the people who are rushing to register were influenced by an INSTAGRAM POST FROM A CELEBRITY. Do you actually believe they’re doing their own research? Or are they just doing what Taylor Swift is hinting for them to do? (Vote blue.)

I have a strong feeling the new voters are low-fos. Again. They’re registering because a celebrity told them to. That’s not a good sign, people.