On Sunday, Oct. 7, singer Taylor Swift told her 112 million followers on Instagram that she was endorsing two Democratic candidates in midterm elections in Tennessee — and that people need to vote. By Monday, Vote.org was reporting a spike in voter registration across the country, and it turns out potential Lane County voters felt the Swift effect as well.

EW reached out to the Lane County Elections office, where Cheryl Betschart, Lane County clerk, says, “We did see a jump in our online voter registration overnight. Typically we would see around 175 online registrations average during this time. This morning we had 893.”

Betschart says that Lane County does not capture gender and is not equipped to look at the ages of those registered, though the county does record birthdate. According to Billboard, the national uptick in votes was in Swift’s age demographic of 18-29 year olds.

“‘We are up to 65,000 registrations in a single 24-hour period since T. Swift’s post,’ Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for Vote.org, told Buzzfeed.” The news site adds, “For context, 190,178 new voters were registered nationwide in the entire month of September, while 56,669 were registered in August.”

Swift in her post recommended that her followers go to Vote.org to register. Vote.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit website and doesn’t track people’s political parties when they register.

When asked about Swift’s post, Pres. Donald Trump responded, “Let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25 percent less now, OK?”

The last day to register to vote in Oregon is Oct. 16. Go to Vote.org or the Oregon Secretary of State.

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