Google’s ‘Where to Vote’ Search Result Reflects Quirk of Candidate Surname, Not Bias

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino. Quick Take Social media users alleged bias against former President Donald Trump when a Google search on Election Day for “where to vote” returned an interactive map to find a person’s polling station when including the word “Harris” but not “Trump.” The reason is because “Harris” is a county in Texas, whereas “Trump” is not a location. Full Story As millions of Americans were headed to the polls to cast their ballots on Nov. 5, social media accounts were falsely claiming Google was trying to interfere with the election by providing different search results for Vice President Kamala Harris than it did for Trump. In late October, the company had rolled out a map search result feature, as it had in previous years, to provide voters with locations when they searched& for terms such as “where to vote” or “ballot dropboxes.” It turned out the interactive map, allowing a person to put in their address, also appeared when querying “where can I vote for Harris,” but not when searching “where can I vote for Trump.” A screenshot of Google’s “where to vote” panel. The interactive map appeared when adding the...