Facebook Strengthens U.S. Public Opinion Survey Features

Newsfeed Launch for Hiring Employees at Polling Agencies

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] Ahead of the U.S. presidential election, as a shortage of poll workers is occurring in the United States due to the resurgence of COVID-19, Facebook has strengthened its polling functions.

According to TechCrunch on the 14th, amid the poll worker shortage becoming an issue in the U.S. election, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, recently announced, "We will launch a poll worker recruitment drive on the Facebook platform."

Accordingly, Facebook users aged 18 and over in the U.S. can now see messages in their News Feed that link them to a poll worker registration page.

Facebook, along with other major companies such as Microsoft (MS) and Starbucks, plans to offer paid leave to employees who want to volunteer for voting. It also provided free advertising to election authorities to recruit poll workers.

This year, the shortage of poll workers in the U.S. due to the COVID-19 situation has become a major issue. As the average age of poll workers increases, they are generally more vulnerable to the COVID-19 threat, making the recruitment of poll workers more essential than in previous years.

According to a 2018 Pew national policy report, poll workers play a crucial role in ensuring smooth elections. A shortage of poll workers can cause long waiting lines, large-scale confusion, and incorrect vote counting. It particularly pointed out that this issue does not take the COVID-19 situation into account.