A Google search “Where can I vote for Harris” brought up a map, but Trump did not

UPDATED: A new conspiracy theory that says Google tried to interfere in the closely watched presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump began gaining traction on Election Day – but the search giant said there was a logical explanation for why searches about it were made where you should vote for each candidate is different.

Earlier Tuesday, Google searches included “Where can I vote for Harris?” A “Where to Vote” map appeared where users can enter their address to find their polling place. A Google search for “Where can I vote for Trump?” didn’t turn up a similar map.

According to Google, the “Where to vote” box appeared in certain searches for Harris because that is also the name of a county in Texas. (Similarly, a search for “Where can I vote for Vance?” triggered the map field based on Vance County, NC) The internet company responded to a post by Elon Musk, noting that “very few people actually responded to this How to search for polling stations. Musk replied: “Thanks for the clarification.”

As of about 3:30 p.m. ET, Google searches for “Where can I vote for Harris” no longer showed the voting map panel.

Of course, it's far more likely that interested voters will simply enter a search string like “where to vote” or “where can I vote,” searches that will bring up the “Where to Vote” map.

The different results when searching Google for “Where can I vote for Harris?” vs. “Where can I vote for Trump?” were highlighted in a post on Musk, owner of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – a big Trump Supporter and Republican donor – quoted the post and asked, “Do others see this too?”

DogeDesigner's post states, “Google is the Democratic Party's largest corporate donor.” According to OpenSecrets, Alphabet (Google's parent company) donated $14.85 million in federal donations to Democrats in the 2023-24 election cycle, followed by Netflix with $9.89 million to Democrats. According to OpenSecrets, Musk's SpaceX donated $129.4 million to Republicans and $723,883 to Democrats during the 2023-24 election cycle.

A similar controversy erupted two months ago over the responses of Amazon's Alexa voice-activated assistant, which gave different answers to the question “Why should I vote for Donald Trump?” and “Why should I vote for Kamala Harris?”

When Alexa was asked in early September if she would vote for Trump, she replied, “I cannot provide content that promotes a particular political party or candidate.” However, when asked if she would vote for Harris, Alexa said In some cases, she offered a detailed list of reasons why someone should vote for the Democrat in November's presidential election – including saying she was a “strong candidate with a proven track record.” An Amazon spokesperson said at the time that the issue was “an error that was quickly resolved.”