Internet searches are a little window into our collective soul, and as such looking at them in the aggregate is a modern way of understanding what's on our minds. On election day, many are hoping that this approach can give us insight into what in the world is happening at the polls — and thankfully the folks over at Google Trends have stepped up to provide us with election-focused data across the US and right here in California.
While the general Google search trends are perhaps unsurprising (at the time of this writing, Prince Harry's girlfriend, Meghan Markle, is the top-searched topic in the US), when the data is narrowed down to election-specific queries we gain a pretty fascinating insight into what is happening across our great state.
Google focused on five specific topics: long wait times, provisional ballots, inactive voter status, voter intimidation, and voting machine problems. As the below embedded tool shows, these issues are very much on voters' minds.
"The goal of Electionland is to cover access to the ballot and problems that prevent people from exercising their right to vote," Google wrote of their project. "By exploring with us on Tuesday, you’ll be part of an experiment to see if data can can shed light on some of the biggest issues on the biggest day in the election cycle."
And while this information straight from the horse's mouth is fascinating, USA Today did their own little bit of data gathering to bring us the following factoid: Many people across our great union just want to know "who is Taylor Swift voting for?" Ah, the big questions in life.
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