Google Helps You to Find Nearest Voting Location – US Election 2020

Google Helps You to Find Nearest Voting Location – US Election 2020

US Presidential Election

The World’s eyes are on the US election 2020 is scheduled on Nov 3rd which will be the 59th quadrennial presidential election between current USA President Donald Trump and Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Both candidates starting their campaigns and done their first presidential debate last month. But Trump has refused to participate in the second US presidential election debate after it was announced the event would be held virtually due to his diagnosis.   

Google’s Find Nearby Polling Location Feature

So voters who want to know the nearest polling place or ballot dropbox to register your vote? Tech giant Google Inc, recently in a new blog post says launched a new feature for US voters to find nearest voting locations by their search engine, Google assistant, and maps. 

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People who go to Google Search to find voting information, now they can easily find details while search ‘early voting locations’ or ‘ballot drop boxes near me’, providing voters with details on where they can vote in-person or return their mail-in ballot. 

This feature is also extended to Google Assistant. If you’ve got an Assistant-powered device nearby (An android phone, Nest Mini, or Nest Hub), so voters can ask ‘Hey Google, where do I vote?’ and they get details via an Assistant-enabled smartphone, smart speaker, or smart display.      

Same as if someone searching for “voting locations near me” in the Google Maps in a mobile app, it shows results based on location by tapping the “Directions” button will get the nearest voting place details. 

Google product manager Yunhan Xu says the reason to highlight polling locations directly in Search in Maps comes after searches for “how to vote” in the US reached record-highs this year.

Google says, they pulling its nearby polling location information from the Voting Information Project as partnered with Democracy Works and state election officials. The company says they’ll be adding more polling places until US Election Day, expecting to have more than 200,000 in the system when all is said and done.

Official Website for US Election 2020

If you feel don’t want to get your polling place details from Google search, maps, and assistant or just want more clarification about polling locations? There’s an always official site like Vote.org and usa.gov/voting also provides info on checking your voter registration status, becoming a poll worker, etc.

YouTube Includes a New Voter Awareness Prompts Ahead Of US Elections

YouTube Includes a New Voter Awareness Prompts Ahead Of US Elections

With less than 35 days away from the USA presidential election, YouTube has created a new prompt this week, when you search in YouTube about election-related search queries, you get a “Learn More” button for the official election website. This will helps to increase awareness about the voting process and understanding of both candidates. This new strategy will maximize the polling rate and fight against rumors and misinformation around the elections.  

Below the screenshot, the prompts will be displayed in searches for terms like “How to register to vote” and “How to vote”, with these alerts are lead the users to the Google’s official voting tools by this “Learn More” CTA button. In addition to this feature, searches for 2020 federal or presidential Congressional candidates will also show a similar information panel with extra details about the presidential candidates above the results.

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“We’re also providing two additional information panels on voter registration and how to vote, in English and Spanish.”

YouTube also adding a new in-app reminder feature, on how to register, how to vote, and where to vote. YouTube promoting information from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission about volunteering at the polls, so users can know more about how to get involved and assist with community participation.

YouTube also starting to launch two YouTube Originals to show the highlights of election-related information

YouChoose 2020 – This is an interactive voting special video which takes viewers through the key steps in the voting process using with YouTube meme of your choosing – “from a cooking tutorial that compares voting to following a recipe, to an auto repair video that breaks down the ‘nuts and bolts’ of voting”.

Kids Correspondent – This four-part election special episode is mainly designed to help parents and families to better understand and talk about civic engagement and the democratic process.

YouTube is always one of the main sources of news and information during election time. A date from Pew Research states that around 38% of YouTube users get regular news updates, which only behind Facebook Inc. This report clearly shows YouTube is in a significant position of influence when users search for reliable information.

Though Youtube can also drive users down to conspiracy rabbit holes as well as similar steps are like this very important to ensure that the audience is receiving the right information about the process of voting during the viewing activity.

In 2020, this is even more important due to this global pandemic COVID-19 & lockdown situation people spending more time on the internet. The watch time of YouTube content on TV screens has been increased by 80% year over year. More regional TV news channels and newspapers have been forced to close due to the economic impacts of the pandemic and also increasing internet usage people moved to the world’s biggest social media platform Facebook and YouTube to get instant news updates.   

So that social media platforms are playing a vital role in providing relevant and accurate information that jumps high this year. That’s why it is very important that each and everyone should add links to the reliable source of information while sharing social media profiles. Like these new prompts created by YouTube in users’ queries.