Women make up about 51 percent of the population and 53 percent of the electorate in U.S. presidential elections. But for some reason they are absolutely clobbering men when it comes to clicking on Facebook’s “I voted” button today.
As I write this, some 3.6 million women have clicked on a special election-day prompt at the top of their newsfeed that encourages those who have voted to share the news with friends. That’s nearly twice the number of men who have done the same. At last count, just 1.8 million men had clicked on the prompt, according to the real-time analytics on the “American Votes 2012” Facebook Stories page.
Is this good news for Obama, who leads among women voters, according to polls? Or does it just mean that women spend more time on Facebook? Or that they’re better at following instructions? Is this a product of residual enthusiasm for the Nineteenth Amendment, 92 years later?
I contacted Facebook to see if they could offer any insight. They couldn’t. Why are women clicking the “I Voted” button on Facebook so much more than men?
