Google didn’t just show maps to Harris voters – DW – 11/06/2024

As vote counting is underway in the United States, several 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 told supporters of Kamala Harris where to vote — but didn’t do the same for people whose election candidate was Donald Trump.

Assertion: On X, Musk reinforced a post claims Google shows a “Where to Vote” section with a map offered to Harris supporters but not Donald Trump’s. The post got 36 million views. Musk also shared one postwhere he tested the search himself, but removed it soon after. Numerous other users also complained about their search results.

DW fact check: Misleading

In fact, 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 one direct answer to Musk’s claim, Google confirmed that the map appeared because “Harris” is the name of a county in Texas. Something similar happens when you type “Where to vote for Vance” because “Vance” is one county in North Carolina. Trump on the other hand is not the name of a county in the United States.

Googlewhich 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 a X post of the companydid shortly after. If you are searching for “Where to vote for Harris” now news articles will be displayed as they did before Trump. Musk replied to Google’s message and thanked the company for the clarification, but the original video is still posted on 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 TV fact-checking team ARD-Faktenfinder, BR24 #Faktenfuchs and DW Fact check on the 2024 US election.