Politics and Elections Blog
Trends, tools and news from the Google Politics & Elections team
Likely Voters are Spending More Time than Ever Watching Online Video
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The American electorate has reached a tipping point -- with 29% of likely voters not having watched live television in the past week -- according to new research from Google, digital firms Targeted Victory (R) and Well & Lighthouse (D), and polling firms Public Opinion Strategies (R) and Global Strategy Group (D).
To understand how electoral and advocacy campaigns can effectively reach likely voters, Public Opinion Strategies and Global Strategy Group conducted a national telephone survey of N=800 likely voters, January 25-28, 2014.
Read the full study
here
.
YouTube’s your one stop shop for U.S. politics this week
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
It’s a busy week in Washington, but you don’t need to be in the nation’s capital to be a part of it. YouTube will deliver each big moment live.
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, President Obama’s fifth State of the Union address will stream live on
the White House’s YouTube channel
, followed by the Republican response by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers on
Speaker Boehner’s channel
. Senator Mike Lee will deliver the
Tea Party response
and Senator Rand Paul will offer
remarks
as well. Several of our news partners will also share their coverage of the event on YouTube, including the
New York Times
,
Wall Street Journal
,
Washington Post
,
The Young Turks
, and
NowThis News
.
This Friday at 2 p.m. ET, President Obama will participate in the
first-ever Presidential Hangout Road Trip
. He’ll “travel” the country and hop into Google+ Hangouts with people from across the nation to answer their questions and hear their thoughts about the topics he addressed in tonight’s speech.
If you’d like to join the Hangout, record a 60-second video with your name, location, a bit about yourself and the question you’d like to ask the president. Then post it on YouTube with the hashtag #AskObama2014.
Tune in all week and keep up with the latest news by subscribing to
youtube.com/news
.
Posted by Brandon Feldman, News Content Partnerships, recently watched
"Kid President's Letter to a Person on Their First Day Here."
Google launches an elections portal in India
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Cross-posted from the Official Google India Blog
Last week, Google launched an elections portal www.google.co.in/elections that will assist voters in India to understand the electoral process, get access to all the news related to elections and politics, get detailed information on specific political parties. The Elections Portal will serve as a one stop destination to help voters get answers to their elections and voting-related queries to make an informed decision.
In the first phase of the launch, the portal will cover news information and videos related to state elections for Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Mizoram covering news from leading publications and broadcasters both in English and Hindi. Users will also be able to watch content hosted by YouTube partners for elections and links to Hangouts done by political representatives in the recent past.
In addition to this, the portal will also offer information on how to register for voting along with a section on frequently asked questions around voting and registration. Our intent is to empower voters with all the information they need at a single destination for upcoming general elections. Over time we will add more functionality to enable users to interact and engage with the candidates, so that they are not simply watching from afar, but participating in, engaging with and shaping the political process in a democratic way.
With over 200 million Internet users in the country, the Internet audience in India has reached a critical scale and will play an important role in influencing the decisions of a large proportion of the urban Indian population in the upcoming elections. Elections related search queries on Google have shown a considerable increase and the interest in news information related to elections and politics have started to peak. Leading political parties are active on most social media platforms, and users will be able to access all the information sent out by the political parties on platforms like YouTube, Google+ and connect directly with the candidates in their constituency.
Posted By: Chetan Krishnaswamy, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations, Google India
Civic Information API: now connecting US users with their representatives
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Many applications track and map governmental data, but few help their users identify the relevant local public officials. Too often local problems are divorced from the government institutions designed to help. Today, we're launching new functionality in the
Google Civic Information API
that lets developers connect constituents to their federal, state, county and municipal elected officials—right down to the city council district.
The Civic Information API has already helped developers
create apps for US elections
that incorporate polling place and ballot information, from helping those affected by Superstorm Sandy find updated polling locations over SMS to learning more about local races through social networks. We want to support these developers in their work beyond elections, including everyday civic engagement.
In addition to elected representatives, the API also returns your political jurisdictions using
Open Civic Data Identifiers
. We worked with the Sunlight Foundation and other civic technology groups to create this new open standard to make it easier for developers to combine the Civic Information API with their datasets. For example, once you look up districts and representatives in the Civic Information API, you can match the districts up to
historical election results
published by
Open Elections
.
Developers can
head over to the documentation
to get started; be sure to check out the
"Map Your Reps"
sample application from Bow & Arrow to get a sense of what the API can do. You can also see the API in action today through new features from some of our partners, for example:
Change.org
has implemented a new
Decision Makers
feature which allows users to direct a petition to their elected representative and lists that petition publicly on the representative's profile page. As a result, the leader has better insight into the issues being discussed in their district, and a new channel to respond to constituents.
PopVox
helps users share their opinions on bills with their Congressional Representatives in a meaningful format. PopVox uses the API to connect the user to the correct Congressional District. Because PopVox verifies that users are real constituents, the opinions shared with elected officials have more impact on the political process.
Over time, we will expand beyond US elected representatives and elections to other data types and places. We can’t grow without your help. As you use the API, please visit our
Developer Forum
to share your experiences and tell us how we can help you build the next generation of civic apps and services.
This release is an investment in making the world’s civic data universally accessible and useful. We’ll continue to work with civic developers who are tackling real-world challenges. Together, we can build new tools to improve civic life for everyone.
Posted by Jonathan Tomer, Software Engineer
Following the Chilean Presidential Election
Friday, November 15, 2013
Posted by Ernesto Camacho, Google Politics & Elections Team
On Sunday, Chile will choose a new President. In order to make following the race even easier, we partnered with Servel, Chile’s official electoral service to provide a real-time, minute-by-minute results map. The interactive map not only shows users the latest results on a national and regional level, but also who is leading down to their local commune.
The map is just one part of our
Chilean 2013 Elections site
- a central landing page providing news on each candidate, as well as the information of the political parties and direct links to their YouTube channels, G+ profiles, and Twitter pages. Users can also gauge who is generating the most interest on Google News and Search through our Google
Trends
widget. Take a look at the page and check back Sunday for all the results!
Helping German Voters Prepare for the Federal Election
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Posted by Jason Brooks, Google Politics & Elections Team
When political information is universally available and accessible, the electoral process benefits. Since 2007, the Google Politics & Elections team has launched programs for more than 40 elections and provided tools that have been used over 500 million times by citizens around the worl
d.
Our motto for Sunday’s German Federal Election is 2013+You. While much of this election’s focus is on political parties--which party will receive the most votes to form a new government, elect the Chancellor, and lead the 18th Bundestag--online information tools can help drive more focus on the voter. We want our tools to help provide information about the federal election, but also offer a way to connect and engage with district-level candidates.
We launched a
central hub
for the German election--a one-stop shop for voters to access the latest news, top Google search trends, and Hangouts with top candidates, as well as engage with candidates and media through YouTube and G+.
The
“Your District” map
allows voters
to find out who is running in their districts and learn more about candidates through social media.
Take a look at our just-launched map,
join the conversation on G+
, and make sure to check back on Sunday, when the map will display real-time official results for each of the 299 districts.
Voting in the Big Apple
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Posted by Kate Sokolov, Google Politics and Elections Team
More than 8 million people live in New York City. Tomorrow, they head to the polls to cast votes in the citywide party primaries.
To help New York City voters find where to vote in the primary elections, how to get there, and who is on the ballot, we’ve launched the latest edition of our
Voter Information Tool
. Voters can enter their address to find their polling place and locate it on a Google Map. They can also find ballot information and candidate details for races all the way from Mayor and Borough President to Public Advocate, as well as easily check voting rules and requirements.
We hope this tool will help New Yorkers from Staten Island to the Bronx find all the information they need as simply as possible.
https://voter-info-tool.appspot.com/?election_id=4010
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