Today is Election Day, and people are heading to the polls to cast their votes.
Viral social media posts claim when you search “where to vote for Harris” or a similar query, like “where can I vote for Harris,” a map with voting locations shows up. But when people searched the same thing with “Trump,” the map did not show up.
The posts appear to imply that Google is intentionally favoring Harris. “Google will help you find a place to vote — unless you’re voting for Trump,” one post says.
THE QUESTION
Did Google display a map when users searched “where to vote” for Harris but not Trump?
THE SOURCES
- A VERIFY analysis of Google searches
THE ANSWER
Yes, Google briefly displayed a map when users searched “where to vote” for Harris but not Trump. The search engine said that’s because Harris is also the name of a county in Texas.
WHAT WE FOUND
When a user entered “where to vote for Harris” into the Google search bar, the result displayed a map where users could enter their address to find polling locations. But when the user entered “where to vote for Trump,” there was no map. The viral posts appear to imply bias from the search giant against Trump, but Google says the map popped up when searching for “Harris” because it's also the name of a county in Texas, where Houston is located. The issue has since been resolved.
Google put out a statement on X regarding the discrepancy, stating, "The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX. Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming.”
Google has a feature where users can search “where to vote” or “ballot dropboxes” and find places near them in order to vote. This feature has been in use during previous elections, Google says.
The feature allows searchers to input their addresses and be shown an auto-populated map, but the map still shows up if someone searches “where to vote” and the name of a county or city.
VERIFY tested searches of “where to vote” for Harris, Trump and Vance, and the map no longer shows up with these queries.
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