--- title: Google Voting Tools: Search Giant Helps You Vote in 2014 Election description: Personalized data at the click of a button canonical: https://time.com/3486399/google-vote-tools/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-09T21:10:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:07:29.847Z article:section: Politics og:title: Google Voting Tools: Search Giant Helps You Vote in 2014 Election og:description: Personalized data at the click of a button og:url: https://time.com/3486399/google-vote-tools/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Voting Tools: Search Giant Helps You Vote in 2014 Election twitter:description: Personalized data at the click of a button twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Google Just Made It Really Easy for You to Find Out How to Vote by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Oct 9, 2014 9:10 PM UTC by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Oct 9, 2014 9:10 PM UTC There’s a lot of room for confusion around how to vote this election season, particularly in states where pending and recent court cases are making last minute changes to the process. To help people interested in casting a ballot, [Google](http://googlepolitics.blogspot.com/2014/10/ok-google-how-do-i-vote.html) unveiled a tool Thursday that will make finding out how to vote in your state as easy as typing in a search. After noticing an increase in searches for ‘how to vote,” “register to vote” and “where to vote” the search engine launched a series of web tools to streamline and personalize results to certain voting-specific questions. If a voter in North Carolina, for example, were to type “voter ID North Carolina” into the search bar, they would receive information about what types of identification voters are required to show at the polls in November. (Just an FYI, strict voter identification requirements won’t be in place until 2016 in the Tar Heel state).  Image Courtesy of Google Politics & Elections The prompt even works for smartphone users with the Google app. If users simply say “Ok, Google. How do I vote?”, information on voter registration , identification requirements, and early voting pops up. “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,” Anthea Watson Strong, the elections and civic engagement program manager at Google said in a [blog post](http://googlepolitics.blogspot.com/2014/10/ok-google-how-do-i-vote.html) Thursday. Google is also compiling politics-specific infographics that will show what searches are trending in the final month leading up to the election. In the coming weeks, Google will also be rolling out a tool that show voters where to vote by mapping out polling locations. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3486399/google-vote-tools/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3486399/google-vote-tools/"},"headline":"Google Just Made It Really Easy for You to Find Out How to Vote","datePublished":"2014-10-09T21:10:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:07:29.847Z","description":"Personalized data at the click of a button","url":"https://time.com/3486399/google-vote-tools/","keywords":["2014 Election","Google","Voting"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2014-election/","name":"2014 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3486399/google-vote-tools/","name":"Google Just Made It Really Easy for You to Find Out How to Vote"}}]}] ```