When you vote, you're often given one of those dinky blue stickers with an American flag on it that says "I voted." With the mid-term elections just days away, Foursquare has introduced its own way to reward civic duty. The location-sharing service on Thursday debuted a new "I Voted" badge that users can earn when they check into their local polling place on election day.

"Though we've encouraged people to do things like work out and eat healthy, this is our first step in encouraging users to check in for a great civic cause," said a post on the Foursquare blog "We hope you like it, but most of all, we hope you and your friends get out and vote this Tuesday."

The badge isn't closed to those who vote by mail. Foursquare said that to unlock the badge, absentee voters and voters in vote-by-mail states can check in anywhere in the country and shout "I voted" in order to earn it."

Foursquare is also partnering with other companies such as Google, Rock the Vote, and the Pew Trusts to create a map that shows the amount of traffic at each polling place. Users can check out who's voting from the live map starting Tuesday morning via elections.foursquare.com. Foursquare is also making this map available for users to embed on their own sites.

"You could see that woman are voting more than men in Arizona, or that turnout is especially high in southern New Hampshire," the blog post said.

Foursquare said in a note on the elections site that its motives in creating the badge and starting this project is to "encourage civic participation, increase transparency in the voting process, and develop a replicatable system for the 2012 presidential election."