Google on Tuesday said a “fix is coming” after the search engine was offering different results on Election Day, depending on whether users queried “where can I vote for Trump” or “where can I vote for Harris.”
Here’s what happened: Those looking to vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump would come up empty handed on Tuesday if they were to ask Google where they could vote for Trump:
But those looking to see where they could vote for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris were offered a map feature, allowing users to type in their address to find the nearest voting location, if they asked about Harris.
The discrepancy only appeared when you search for the candidates based on their last names; if you search for “where can I vote for Donald Trump” or “where can I vote for Kamala Harris,” the results are the same — users are not offered the map feature, just election news.
Google, after hearing about it from reporters and users on X — including a prominent platform from owner (and Trump supporter) Elon Musk — said it was an error that would remedied.
“The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX,” the company posted on X. “Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way.”
Thx for this. 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. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way. pic.twitter.com/kybbaN1Nnu
— News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle) November 5, 2024
The difference in search results was first spotted by Emma-Jo Morris, a former Breitbart News editor who is now a consultant for marketing agency Beck & Stone.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, “was the largest employer of donors” to Harris in her first month as the Democratic candidate, Yahoo reported in August.
More recently, Trump, while on Joe Rogan’s podcast, said he had a nice conversation recently with Alphabet CEO Sunday Pichai, who told him his stint working at McDonald’s was a big traffic driver.
And if this story sounds familiar, that’s because Google-owned YouTube last week had to fix what it called a “frustrating” error that restricted search results for Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
