Local election offices often have a low social-media profile, and many don't try to build a following, researchers find

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"Local election officials are trying to share voting information with the public on social media but may be missing some key platforms – and the voters who use them," Thessalia Merivaki and Mara Suttman-Lea report for The Conversation, a site for journalism by academic researchers.

For example, "Young voters in Boone County, Missouri, complained that they had missed the registration deadline to vote in the county’s Aug. 2 primary election. They claimed no one “spread the word on social media.” The local election office in that county actually has a social media presence on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. But its accounts don’t have many followers and aren’t as active as, say, celebrity or teenage accounts are. As a result, election officials’ messages may never reach their audience."

And Boone County does better than most, the researchers have found. "The vast majority of local election officials don’t even have social media accounts beyond Facebook," they write. "And, when they do, it is likely that they are not effectively reaching their audience."

But the researchers have also found that "When local election officials not only have social media accounts but use them to distribute information about voting, voters of all ages – but particularly young voters – are more likely to register to vote, to cast ballots and to have their ballots counted."