Politics and Elections Blog
Trends, tools and news from the Google Politics & Elections team
Ok Google, how do I vote?
Thursday, October 9, 2014
On November 4, Americans will cast ballots for 435 members of congress, 36 senators, 39 governorships, and thousands of other races locally. While every election is important, the voting process can often feel complicated, with the information about how to head to the polls spread across multiple official sources.
Get ready to vote with Google.
That’s why we are launching a number of new tools to equip voters with the information they need to vote on the issues they care about this November. What is my registration deadline? How do I vote? What forms of identification do I need? All a voter needs to do is ask Google.
For the first time ever, a simple search for [
how do i vote
] or [
register to vote
] will give you all the information you need - personalized by state - to vote in person, vote by mail, and make sure you are registered to vote.
Voters can even get reminders on key election information straight from the Google App.
What’s trending this election season?
As election day approaches,
YouTube.com/Elections
and
Google.com/Elections
will provide real-time feeds for all the latest news and analysis, live candidate debates, and trending videos on the key races and top issues from across the country.
By visiting
Google.com/+GooglePolitics
voters can see all Google Trends infographics -- a pulse on what Americans are searching in the final 26 days of the election.
Google Search and the Google Politics & Elections teams are working to make things simpler, by bringing technology to the elections process to encourage transparency, engagement, and informed participation. With so much at stake on November 4th, including the balance of power in Congress, it is crucial that voters have access to all the information they needed to exercise their power to vote at the polls.
Make sure to check back over the coming weeks, as we’ll continue to release new tools to make sure all Americans can discover and connect with our democratic process.
Be informed. Spread the word. Get ready to use your power.
Posted by Anthea Watson Strong, Elections & Civic Engagement Program Manager
Counting the Votes in Brazil
Monday, October 6, 2014
As the polls closed and votes were being totaled yesterday in Brazil, we introduced two new features to our Google Politics & Elections program in Brazil keep everyone updated on the results - both on Election Day and as we head into an October 26th runoff.
Live Results Map
: an interactive map allowing users to view results for president, governor, senator and the number of seats for Congress won by each party, both nationwide and by state level.
Presidential results on search
: for the first time in Brazil, if you do a simple search for words related to elections and results, we will give you the results for the presidential run.
The information is based on data coming directly from the Electoral Supreme Court (
TSE
), our partner in this project.
Since we launched our
Brazil Elections platform
in the beginning of September, thousands of Brazilians have visited the site and used our tools in an effort to stay informed.
Many of them have used the “
Know Your Candidates
” explorer to dig deeper into information on over 20,000 candidates running for office this year - in all 26 states and the Federal District. They’ve have watched YouTube news pieces from Estadão, navigated Media profiles from more than 30 partners and stayed updated on the latest election news from Google News.
All these resources have made the platform a rich source of information. We hope the new results tools live now will help everyone continue to stay updated and informed as Brazil finds out who their next leaders will be.
Posted by Steven Samorodin, Google Politics & Elections Engineering Team
Launching YouTube for Government
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Posted by
Brandon Feldman, YouTube News & Politics
From live streams of the
State of the Union
and
legislative hearings
, to
explainer videos
on important issues and
Hangouts
with constituents, YouTube has become an important platform where citizens engage with their governments and elected officials.
In order to help government officials get a better idea of what YouTube can do, we are launching
youtube.com/government101
, a one-stop shop where government officials can learn how to get the most out of YouTube as a communication tool.
The site offers a broad range of YouTube advice, from the basics of creating a channel to in-depth guidance on features like live streaming, annotations, playlists and more. We’ve also featured case studies from government offices around the world that are using YouTube in innovative ways.
If you're a government official, whether you are looking for an answer to a quick question or need a full training on YouTube best practices, we hope this resource will help you engage in a rich dialogue with your constituents and increase transparency within your community.
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