As revealed by Google, the search engine firm had a bug it fixed such that for specific searches with specific terms regarding voting, a "where to vote" panel is returned alongside the map of places with votes; however, that would not be the case with other searches. So literal that the response even was a simple use of the word "fixed" for a reply to the subject of discussion because Google Search already functions just right and precisely the way it was meant to be. In doing so, Google inadvertently gave oxygen to baseless conspiracy theories that it was somehow intentionally displaying biased results.

The issue was brought up on X by Elon Musk, who asked if others were seeing the problem with the "where to vote" queries, too, and later posted an emoji of a face with a raised eyebrow when resharing another user's post showing the differences in two Google searches.

The problem, Musk and his supporters argued, was that users who typed in "Where can I vote for Harris?" would be presented with a map display that prompted them to enter a street address to find their local polling place. But those who entered the same query for Trump were shown only a selection of top stories and other standard search results.

However, the conspiracy raised makes little sense, as Google on X confirmed that the search engine is working essentially as it was intended because "Harris" is also a place name, referring to one of the counties in Texas, whereas Trump is not. A similar map would appear if users were looking to search for "where can I vote for Vance?", Google noted in a Tuesday afternoon X post.

(Trump's VP pick), since "Vance" is also the name of a county.

That ought to have been enough to squelch the conspiracy theories circulating on X about how Google was rigging results to favor Joe Biden.

It was only afterward, though, that Google chose to change both what would cause the display and the frequency of the "where to vote" panel appeared based on these searches-just as if Google had anything to be guilty of in the first place.

In a post on X at 3:22 p.m. ET Tuesday, the search giant said a fix was coming and noted that very few people actually searched for voting information by appending the name of their county to their query. At 3:38 p.m. ET, Google posted "Update: This is now fixed." As one would predict, word choice by Google - it had "fixed" the issue - invited people prone to believing that somehow Google wanted to influence elections. Questions on X pointed out if Google did not do something wrong, why needed to be "fixed." Others continue to point the mistake in Google and gave punitive suggestion such as the imposition of fines and court cases against Google.