After breaking her apolitical reputation earlier this month, Taylor Swift continues to speak up on the importance of voting this midterm election.
The worldwide pop superstar posted a new message on Instagram Wednesday morning, this time encouraging her 112 million followers to participate in early voting. She wrote: "Something I wish I knew about when I was 18 and voting for the first time: ✨EARLY VOTING✨. It makes it so quick and easy to go and cast your vote before November 6. Early voting starts TODAY in Tennessee and goes to Nov 1 ??. You can check out your state’s early voting dates at the link in my bio."
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The new 'gram comes just over a week after Swift announced with a similar polaroid-syle post that she will support Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for the U.S. House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections. She also asked her fans to register to vote. In the days following her announcement, the nonpartisan website Vote.org reported a massive spike in new voter registrations. One young woman told Refinery29 she was moved to register to vote after seeing Swift's post. "... When I saw Taylor's post, something changed. She gets hate for breathing wrong, so to see her speak so openly and eloquently about what matters to her despite how others might look at her made all the difference. All it takes is one person to change everything," she said.
So, what's the deal with early voting?
Thirty-seven states and Washington D.C. allow early voting, some IRL and others by mail, also known as an absentee ballot. The idea is that these are alternatives for those who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day. In places like Georgia, where a competitive gubernatorial race is taking place, voters are crushing it. Early voting began Monday and 69,049 people cast their ballots in just that first day. By contrast, in the 2014 midterm, the number of people who participated in the first day of early voting was just 20,898.
To learn more about early voting, you can contact your local election officials or try this resource from the U.S. Vote Foundation, which allows you to search by your state.
Whether you take advantage of early voting or just show up to the polls on Election Day, the important thing to remember is that voting is the most powerful thing you can do to have a say in your government. Don't throw away your shot!