Google Caught Favoring Harris in Voter Search Scandal

Google claimed Tuesday that it had fixed an issue in which user search queries for “Where can I vote for Harris” generated an interactive map tool to find polling places, while queries of “Where can I vote for Trump” received no such benefit.The search giant said that the issue stemmed from its algorithm conflating Vice President Kamala Harris’ last name with Harris County, Texas, where Houston is located.“The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches [because] Harris is also the name of a county in [Texas],” the tech behemoth said in an X post. “Update: This is now fixed,” Google later added — and a test carried out by The Post confirmed that to be the case. Numerous users on social media complained about the search giant. Tech guru Elon Musk, for instance, asked his 203 million followers “are others seeing this too” and later cut a screen recording that he posted on X highlighting the problem.Notably, searches of “Where can I vote for Kamala” did not generate the interactive map either. The interactive display appears to have been backed by the Voter Information Project from Democracy Works, a nonprofit that collaborates with tech companies and local officials to drive voter participation. Big tech has been under scrutiny from conservatives, who have groused about the content moderation policies of platforms like Facebook in the past. Back in October 2020, Facebook and other social media platforms infamously suppressed The Post’s bombshell story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Thus far, the Google Inc PAC appears to have donated more to Republicans ($355,500) than Democrats ($320,566) in House races and more to Democrats ($52,000) than Republicans ($37,500) in Senate contests this cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets.