Google uses its Trump card to boost the voter turnout

SAN FRANCISCO: Google is pulling another lever on its influential search engine in an effort to lift voter tur nout in November’s US presidential election.

Beginning on Tuesday, Google will provide a summary box detailing state voting laws at the top of the search results whenever a user appears to be looking for that information.

The breakdown will focus on the rules particular to the state where the search request originates unless a user asks for another location.

Google is introducing the how- to-vote instructions a month after it unveiled a similar feature that explains how to register to vote in states across the US.

The search giant said its campaign is driven by rabid public interest in the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. As of last week, it said, the volume of search requests tied to the election, the candidates and key campaign issues had more than quadrupled compared to a similar point in the 2012 presidential race.

It’s difficult to predict whether Google’s efforts will have a major impact on how many people cast ballots, says Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who studies election turnout closely.

That’s because Google will narrowly target its voting instructions to people who are actively seeking that information. Sample requests that will elicit a helping hand from Google include “what do I need to vote”, “when can I vote”, “what is the absentee ballot deadline” and “can I vote by mail”.

The summary boxes won’t appear for broader requests pertaining to the election, such as “Clinton” or “Trump.”

That means Google may primarily end up helping out “politically engaged” people who’d be likely to cast a November ballot even without prodding from the world’s most popular search engine. “It’s an open question on how large the positive effect will be,” McDonald said.

Other online services have previously tried to encourage more people to vote. In the November 2010 midterm election, Facebook posted a “get out to vote” message in the news feeds of about 60 million people on its social network.

Google said it considers its voting tools to be a non-partisan public service, although swings in voter turnout have swayed past elections.

McDonald, though, says it is always difficult to predict which candidate in an election stands to gain the most from an increase in voter turnout. – Daily Mail