• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, November 2, 2010

Could location-based social media encourage participatory democracy? Well, it can't hurt. While it would be kind of sad if the only reason someone voted was to get a badge on Foursquare, the special limited-edition "iVoted" badge offered by the social network for today's elections is a neat way for voters to display their civic commitment.

Foursquare users who vote can earn the badge by checking in at the polling station and including #ivoted in their "shout out." As of noon on Tuesday PST, Foursquare users had registered 12,544 polling stations as places to check in, and recorded a total of 21,166 actual check-ins, or roughly two check-ins per venue. A map of the U.S. on Foursquare, created by JESS3, showed that the most check-ins were -- surprise -- taking place in California and New York, followed by Illinois and Florida. Presuming the check-ins are concentrated in hip urban areas like Chicago and Miami, I'm going to guess Foursquare check-ins are leaning heavily Democratic (probably the only results to do so during this election).

Indeed, for all the Foursquare fervor in metropolitan areas, some parts of the country appear to be vast Foursquare deserts, at least on election day: almost no one has checked in at a polling place in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, or Nebraska, and precious few in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Mississippi, Idaho, Iowa, Arkansas, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Those last two are particularly surprising, considering that Portland and Seattle are veritable dens of online hipness and political engagement. Maybe they're still getting their lattes and taking Tristan to the dog park.

On the other hand, the metropolitan parts of the "New South" are very well-represented: some of the highest-indexing areas of the country, in terms of election day check-ins, are Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. If I had to guess the specific parts of these states driving voting check-ins, I'd say Alexandria and Charlottesville in VA, Atlanta and Athens in GA, Research Triangle in NC, and Austin in TX.

Meanwhile Facebook is greeting users 18 years of age and older with an invitation to use it polling place locator, and an "I Voted" button for users to boast of their civic involvement. By 11 a.m. on the West Coast, over 4 million users had clicked the "I Voted Button," promising an even bigger online turnout than 2008, when about 5.44 million users clicked (although unlike Foursquare, there's no way to know whether they actually visited the polling station).