In the race for Taiwan’s 2016 presidential election, every vote mattered. Until now voters had little access to any meaningful information about the candidate’s running and no way to get involved directly or get their voice heard often resulting in a landslide victory created by a bandwagon effect.

Voters needed an easier way to grab all the facts keep up-to-date with the latest agendas and engage with the unfolding story of each candidate. So Google set to work creating a one-stop, totally comprehensive election hub powered by its technology.

The site launched in October, six weeks ahead of the official start to the presidential campaign. It featured:

1. Homepage - featuring candidates’ profile, manifesto, trends, social networks, schedule and latest election news via YouTube, Google News and Google+. Also, the homepage switched to real-time poll results and live open ballot on Election Day.

2. #AsktheCandidate - inviting voters to submit questions directly to Presidential candidates across 15 national topics. The most popular questions were answered directly by candidates on our election site and some of them were chosen as debate questions in the televised Presidential Dates.

3. Trends - providing “Google Score”, a measure of candidates search activity on Google and YouTube. Infographics charting what issues are emerging across the country, and search trends tracked the various candidates with data based on Search insights and Trends.