We started #NationalVoterRegistrationDay in 2012 after crunching data and realizing that sixmillionAmericans missed the 2008 election, the highest turnout election of my lifetime, because they didn't how to register to vote or missed a deadline 1/? https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/register-to-vote/

There's a bunch of reasons for this. In 2008, official state-run online voter registration tools were exceptionally rare (today, only 10 states are refusing to use this straight-forward technology). 2/

Civics education has gotten less focus, so people may not know they need to register, much less that they need to update it regularly 3/

Most political spending in this country is aimed at likely voters in battleground states, but huge numbers of voters (making important choices for city, county, and state office) live in other states, getting less attention 4/

The traditional civic engagement field just doesn't have enough money to reach and educate these folks. We knew a problem this big needed everybody's help 5/

So we ended up deciding to start a holiday -- welcoming, celebratory, inclusive, and a limited ask. Media companies may not be able to launch a major initiative, but they could schedule a tweet or send an internal email. 6/

The first #NationalVoterRegistrationDay was a success - over a thousand partners, big tech platforms joined in the celebration, major employers activated, nonprofits that don't normally talk about voting. 7/

But it was nothing compared to what a whole bunch of folks have planned for today, which was another part of the intention in building an annualized event -- to build habits, to build community (with a dash of competition), to build social pressure. 8/

Thanks to COVID, lots of folks have relocated temporarily. Millions are turning 18 or getting married, changing names. And many are just newly interested. There's a hundred reasons why someone would need to register to vote. #NationalVoterRegistrationDay is for them 9/

But it also only works if in our celebration, we intentionally point folks to resources, so link to tools like the one at https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/register-to-vote/ because none of us are born with this knowledge. Thanks! 10/10

Also - I want to amen what @ElectProject says. We should celebrate democracy and elections. We should celebrate when an individual registers to vote. But we shouldn't celebrate this system. It's unnecessary, inefficient, and error-prone. https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1308406040690655234