Fact Check: Google did not only show maps to Harris voters
November 6, 2024
While vote counting is underway in the United States, numerous false claims of voter fraud are being shared on social media. These include the alleged manipulation of voting machines and ballots.
X owner Elon Musk has long attracted attention for spreading false claims about the US election. On Tuesday, he shared a post suggesting that Google was telling supporters of Kamala Harris where to vote — but not doing the same for people whose candidate of choice was Donald Trump.
Claim: On X, Musk amplified a post claiming that Google shows a "Where to Vote" section with a map offered to Harris supporters, but not those of Donald Trump. The post received 36 million views. Musk also shared a postin which he tested the search himself, but removed it shortly afterward. Numerous other users also complained about their search results.
DW Fact check: Misleading
Indeed, a map appeared when users typed in the question "Where can I vote for Harris." A search for "Trump" returned only news articles. But, according to Google, there is a simple reason why it only shows a map for Harris and not for Trump. In a direct response to Musk's claim, Google confirmed that the map appeared because "Harris" is the name of a county in Texas. Something similar happens when typing in "Where to vote for Vance" because "Vance" is a county in North Carolina. Trump, on the other hand, is not the name of a county in the United States.
Google, which itself shared information about how Google Search and Maps can help US voters find their polling places, promised to fix the problem quickly and, according to an X post by the company, did shortly afterward. If searching for "Where to vote for Harris" now, news articles will appear, as they did for Trump. Musk did respond to Google's message and thanked the company for the clarification, but the original video is still posted to his account.
DW has also fact-checked several of Musk's previous posts about the election.
Edited by: M. Gagnon
This article is part of a collaboration between Germany's public broadcasting fact checking teams ARD-Faktenfinder, BR24 #Faktenfuchs and DW Fact check on the US elections 2024.