Looks like Facebook and Twitter are determined to encourage voter turnout as the social networking sites are using special buttons to allow people to tell their friends that they've voted.

Social networking giant Facebook has unveiled a voting button to allow people to tell their friends that they've cast their ballot.

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Using a special button Facebook has installed, over a million people have already shared on the site that they're voting. Facebook users can effortlessly share the news that they have voted without revealing who they chose.

The "I'm a Voter" button appears at the top of the site's newsfeed and the social networking site's data shows a huge outpouring as voting opened around 8am, Telegraph noted.

The numbers tapered of a little into mid-morning, however, it still showed that nearly 200,000 people per hour were clicking the button. The button is said to most commonly used by women aged between 25 to 34. Nevertheless, the distribution across ages and genders is still reasonably uniformly shared.

Facebook believes that allowing people to tell friends that they have voted will result in increased turnout.

That said, the button has already been used in the last three U.S. elections that includes the EU parliamentary election, the Scottish independence referendum as well as the Indian election. In all cases, the button succeeded in increasing the turnout reaching a staggering 31 million people.

All 300,000 additional voters turned up to the polls because they had seen the button in the U.S. election back in 2010, Facebook has said citing a study in scientific journal Nature.

Twitter, on the other hand, have come up with a special "hashflag" that allows people to post that they've voted with a special picture, according to Independent.  As soon as a user tweets  #IVoted, a special hashflag emerges and puts a little box next to the letters.

TagsMark Zuckerberg, social networking sites, hashflag, I'm a Voter, #IVoted, facebook voting button, Facebook news, facebook new feature, facebook feature