Contrary to some of the commenters in this thread, I don't believe that it's necessarily relevant if Google is presently manipulating any voting outcomes. If we identify a case where a private company has the power to significantly, singularly and covertly manipulate the outcome of our elections, I think we automatically have some very serious implications to consider. Apparently, this kind of view is not very fashionable. It's strange, this new "normal" we live in.
I mean, you're describing every media company ever. This isn't the new normal, it's the old normal in a new dress. Outside of media companies that try to sway subconscious thought about a candidate, there are private companies that make voting machines which could be easily hacked to physically change votes. The fact that Google could, potentially, one day, maybe sway people seems to take a back seat to that. In my eyes at least.
Well of course (possible and factual) manipulation of elections isn't anything new. But much like I don't get how "Well Google and Facebook do it, too" makes Microsoft's behavior any better, I don't understand how "traditional media and manufacturers of voting machines need to be questioned critically, too" makes it any less important to understand what google is capable of. Plus, you can't compare google to traditional media companies. Google is not a station or a paper. Google is the search engine. They are the provider of online videos. They are a huge part of most people's digital ecosystem. And people view google as this neutral provider of information on demand. People (at least those who aren't entirely beyond help) don't watch fox news with that attitude. People understand that when they read the NYT, there's a person behind that article and that guy has an opinion. That's not how we look at the order of our google search results, is it?