“For many in the LatinX community, their voices are unheard and their future uncertain. Together, we can help members of this community realize their power to change the future of education, health care, economy and beyond”- Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey.

The 2020 US Presidential Elections saw the nation divided like never before, contributing towards an overwhelming apathy amongst the Latinx community around voting. Historically overlooked, interest in the election declined amongst the Latinx community because they felt their vote couldn’t make a difference. With minimal information around elections and voting registration, and ample misinformation being forwarded on our platform at alarming rates, it was WhatsApp’s responsibility to educate and empower the 32 million eligible Latinx voters to realize their vote could decide the country’s future.

How could WhatsApp do that in a way that resonated with the community culturally, educated them, and made them go and vote?

WhatsApp formed a partnership with Vote.org and International Fact Checking Network to present “The Last Horoscope”, a final zodiac reading from the most iconic LatinX astrologer and cultural influencer—Walter Mercado. WhatsApp and GUT worked directly with Walter’s family to create an integrated campaign inspired by Latinx voters to show the community that the power was in their hands.

Once we empowered the Latinx community through this campaign with Walter Mercado, we needed to guide them toward the right information and help them with the voting process. WhatsApp collaborated with both these organizations, Vote.org and IFCN, to create firsts-of-its-kind voter registration and fact checking bots in Spanish and English. These FactChat bots lived exclusively inside WhatsApp, and effectively shared valuable resources regarding voting and fought election misinformation to make sure the community had the right information, and in turn gave them the power to influence the future of this nation through voting.

The campaign impacted more than 21.5M US users, almost 40% of the US Latino population with more than 2 million direct engagement to the bots and over 500K messages sent. “The Last Horoscope” became WhatsApp’s largest and most successful election campaign and fact-checking initiative in the history of the brand, while contributing significantly to bring the nation together.

“A last message that he would’ve loved to share with his community with mucho mucho amor.”- Walter’s family.