Taylor Swift on the first night of her Eras tour, pictured earlier this year. The artist has often encouraged her fans to register to vote.
On Tuesday morning, the singer posted a short message on Instagram urging her 272 million followers to register to vote. Afterward, the website she directed her fans to — the nonpartisan nonprofit Vote.org — logged more than 35,000 registrations, according to the organization.
“I’ve been very lucky to see so many of you at my shows in the US lately. I have heard you raise your voices and I know how powerful they are,” she wrote on her Instagram Stories. “Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” Her post included a link to register at Vote.org.
The 35,252 new registrations on National Voter Registration Day were the most since 2020, the organization said, and a 23% increase from the previous year. The number of 18-year-olds registered more than doubled in 2022.
Andrea Hailey, CEO of Vote.org, called it an “extremely encouraging sign of voter enthusiasm,” particularly among voters newly eligible to vote since they turned 18. “Time and time again, young people show up and show that they care about their rights and access to the ballot box,” Hailey said in a statement.
It’s not clear exactly how many of the registrations were linked to Swift’s Instagram. Vote.org reported a 1,226% increase in participation in the hour after the post.
“Our site averaged 13,000 users every 30 minutes – a number Taylor Swift would be proud of,” Hailey said, referencing Swift’s affinity for the number 13.
Swift has previously encouraged her fans to register to vote, although she has shied away from political support for years. That changed in 2018, when she weighed in favor of the Democratic candidates in Tennessee’s congressional elections. (Her appeal this week was impartial.)
Her profile is particularly high this year with the release of her Eras tour – which could become the highest-grossing concert tour in history when it wraps up next year – and her newly recorded albums Speak Now which landed in July, and 1989which is scheduled to be released in October.
Since its inception in 2012, National Voter Registration Day has been supported by a number of nonprofit voting organizations such as the League of Women Voters and Head Count, which works with musicians to register voters at concerts.
