Category Archives: Politics & Elections Blog

Trends, tools and news from the Google Politics and Elections team

YouTube Creators interview President Obama following the State of the Union

Every year since 2010, President Obama has turned to YouTube and Google after his State of the Union speech to answer questions that are top of mind for the American people. Asked through YouTube video submissions or live via Google+ Hangouts, these questions always bring an interesting perspective to the issues the president addresses in his speech. This year we’re doing something we’ve never done before: bringing a handful of YouTube creators directly to the White House to talk with the president in person in a live broadcast on Thursday, January 22.

YouTube creators Bethany MotaGloZell Green and Hank Green will interview President Obama about the top concerns facing them and their audiences. Over the next few days, the creators will ask you to share the questions you have for the president, some of which may be asked during the interview. In years past, people across the United States have used this interview to ask important questions about jobs, immigration and even Valentine’s Day. Use #YouTubeAsksObama on social media to suggest issues that are important to you or any questions that are on your mind.

Announcing The YouTube Interview with President Obama

Finally, don’t forget to tune in on January 20 at 9 p.m. EST to watch the State of the Union address, as well as the Republican response, live on YouTube.

Through the Google lens: search trends December 6-11

From The Colbert Report to astronomer Annie Jump Cannon, here's a look at this week's search stars.

The presidency is just my day job

Being the President of the United State is no easy task, but Barack Obama may have just faced his toughest test yet...a seat on The Colbert Report. This is the Commander-in-Chief’s third time on the show, but it’s still no cakewalk with every topic up for grabs—including Obama’s less than ideal approval ratings and his graying hair. Obama proved himself up for the challenge, though, kicking Colbert off his segment and making it his own.

Not only does Obama moonlight as a comedian—it turns out he can also code. At a White House event with 30 middle school students, the President kicked off Hour of Code, a program that encourages young people to develop their computer and software programming skills. With a little help from one of the kids, Obama wrote a single line of JavaScript, “moveForward(100),” to move the tutorial’s character 100 pixels to the right, and in the process becoming the first U.S. president to write a computer program.

Winners and losers

Search trends mobile

Competition on The Voice is heating up; the three finalists were revealed this week. But there’s a twist in the show’s seventh season: to spice things up, its creators introduced a new wildcard spot, bringing the total number of potential finalists to four. Now the nine remaining contestants who didn’t make it to the top three will duke it out for that fourth spot and a shot at singing glory.

While The Voice contestants still have a chance to take home the grand prize, other stars were left out in the cold this week when the Golden Globe nominations included several snubs. Names left off the selection sheet were Angelina Jolie and her upcoming film Unbroken, Christopher Nolan and his much-hyped Interstellar, and Bradley Cooper, who gained 40 pounds to portray Chris Kyle in the biopic film American Sniper. Oh well—there's still the Oscars. Meanwhile, movies Birdman and Boyhood snapped up seven and five nominations, respectively—and the TV category is staying interesting with nods for several Netflix original series, Amazon’s first appearance with Transparent, and two surprise nominations for the CW’s quirky Jane the Virgin.

The sky above

This week, searchers spent a good chunk of their time looking up. The weather was top of mind as the Pineapple Express—no, not the film—hit the San Francisco Bay Area, causing flooding and power outages. The phenomenon gets its name from its origins in the waters near Hawaii, a.k.a. the Pineapple State, where it develops before heading towards the U.S Pacific Coast.

Even for those of us trapped indoors, searchers got a chance to look at the stars...on our homepage at least. Searchers looked for more information about astronomer Annie Jump Cannon after a Google doodle marked her 151st birthday. Cannon—who was deaf for most of her adult life, and often overshadowed by her colleague Edward C. Pickering—was instrumental in the development of the Harvard Classification system, which categorizes stars by their temperature (whether or not they were nominated for a Golden Globe).

Annie Jump Cannon doodle

Tip of the week

Need to find something in the apps on your Android phone? Now you can ask your Google app for help—even if it’s in another app. Just say “Ok Google” and then “search YouTube for holiday decorating ideas” or “search Tumblr for Taylor Swift” and jump straight to those results within the other app (if you have it installed).

And come back next week for Google's Year in Search—a review of the people, moments, and events that captured the world's attention.

Ok Google, how do I vote?

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.

tablet_elections.jpg      yt_elections_android.jpg

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

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.

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  • 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.

Launching YouTube for Government

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.

Following Scotland’s Referendum Vote

On Thursday, September 18, 2014, Scotland’s five million residents will be faced with a defining decision for their country: Should Scotland be an independent country?

For the first time in the United Kingdom - and for this vote only - 16 and 17 year olds will be able to sign up to the electoral register and have a voice in this historic moment.

With under two weeks left until polling day, we want to help you stay up to date on all the latest news surrounding the vote.

That’s why we’ve launched the Google Elections site dedicated to the Scottish referendum.

Visit: google.com/landing/scotland where you’ll find news articles, Google+ Hangouts, and YouTube Videos on the upcoming vote as well as profiles of some of the key players.



Follow the politicians on Google+, join in the online Hangouts, and have your say on the dedicated online communities. Because this site is for you to stay informed on all the key issues and to allow you to interact with the people deciding your future.


Posted by Kate Sokolov, Google Politics & Elections Team


2014 Google Personal Democracy Fellows

Posted by Anthea Watson Strong, Google Social Impact team

Google and Personal Democracy Media have teamed up to offer fellowships for women working in civic technology to attend the 11th annual Personal Democracy Forum, June 5-6, 2014 at NYU’s Skirball Center.

This year’s theme is “Save the Internet | The Internet Saves,” and focuses on the ways people can work together to keep the Internet open for free speech, and how the Internet itself helps make society and civic life more open, participatory, and innovative.

For the 2014 Google PDF Fellowship, we have selected 15 women who are working to keep the Internet open and working on ways the Internet makes democracy stronger -- or both!

We’re excited to announce the 2014 Google Personal Democracy Fellows, and we’re expecting great things from the 15 women selected for the Fellowship.

Congratulations to the 2014 Google Personal Democracy Fellows, and thank you to everyone who applied!

Serah Kiburu
Wendy Fong
Tiffany Chu
Joylita Saldanha
Ellie Marshall
Alessandra Orofino
Anna Mazgal
Emma Mulqueeny
Clemence Pene
Jamiah Adams
Paola Villarreal
Katrin Verclas
Sarah Kaufman
Rebekah Monson

Emma Ruiz

Introducing ‘Know Your Candidates tool’ for Lok Sabha Elections 2014

Cross-posted from the Google India Blog

Tool to help voters find information about Lok Sabha candidates and their constituency MP

In the last five months, we have made a concerted effort to provide our users a destination for all their information needs for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. As we get closer to the voting day in many constituencies, we are introducing a new tool as part of our elections portal offeringgoogle.co.in/elections’, called ‘Know Your Candidates’. The new tool will allow you to get easy access to relevant information about political candidates contesting from your constituency and the incumbent Member of Parliament.

This tool integrates publicly available information sourced from Indian organizations such as the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), PRS Legislative Research and Liberty Institute India. The tool will provide valuable information for each sitting Lok Sabha MP and contesting candidates such as their disclosed educational background, financial declaration and social media presence (wherever available). The Tool also integrates YouTube candidate bios being produced by Ping Network.

Mapped onto the Google Maps interface, you will be able to find the information about candidates by using pin codes of your area or by zooming into your locality on the map.

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We hope that making this information easily accessible will help Indian voters learn more about candidates running for public office and help them to make an informed decision

Posted by Google Elections Team, Google India



Keeping one billion voters informed in India and Indonesia

Cross-posted from the Google Asia Pacific Blog

Election season is in full swing for two of the world’s largest democracies as a staggering one billion people make their way to the polls in April. To help keep Indian and Indonesian voters informed, we’ve launched tools that provide easier access to the latest news, videos, and practical details about the coming elections.

India
We’re enabling interaction between candidates and their electorates through a series of Hangouts on Air with India’s political leaders. You can view the conversation with BJP leader Arun Jaitley and stay informed about upcoming guests through our Elections Hub.

Indians can also submit an interactive Pledge to Vote on the map to share messages with fellow citizens on why voting is important. If you need any inspiration, watch this moving story of Mr. Shyam Negi, independent India’s first voter, who is 97 years old and has never missed the opportunity to cast his vote.





Indonesia 

In Indonesia, voting-rights NGO Perludem and The Asia Foundation are using our Google Maps tools to create a candidate information map that will be updated as votes come in on election day. Together with Perludem, we’ve also held workshops to enable Indonesian candidates to reach and communicate with voters across the country on platforms such as YouTube and Google+. In this year’s election, 44% of voters are between 18 and 22 years old, and are casting their ballots for the first time. We hope that through better engagement with the candidates, more young voters will be encouraged to go to the polls.

Indonesia’s Elections Hub also keeps citizens informed about how the different political parties are trending in Google Search. 



As election fever sets in, we hope the Elections Hubs at Google.co.in/elections for India and Google.co.id/elections for Indonesia provide you with all the information that you need to stay on top of these significant events.


Posted by Chetan Krishnaswamy, Head of Government Relations at Google India, and Shinto Nugruho, Head of Government Relations, Google Indonesia

Case Study: Enroll America

The developing story about the Affordable Care Act is how Enroll America - and its use of technology - has been central to the upward trend in health insurance enrollees.
Enroll America’s goal is simple: maximize the number of Americans enrolling in affordable health coverage. Read the full case study here.