In the four years since the last election period, web sites across the board have made great strides. Online election coverage is one area that took giant leaps over the past few years, now offering more and better resources than ever before.
On November 5, voters across the country could turn to a growing number of web sites to follow state and local elections – with greater efficiency as well. More bandwidth allowed the public to access these sites without the long wait caused by the online traffic jams many people experienced four years ago.
National portals, like the National Conference of State Legislatures and Council of State Governments, CNN, MSNBC and StatePulse did a great job of providing links to historic and background information on partisan control and ballot initiatives, and election news.
For real-time reporting of election results, voters had a broad range of sites to choose from – including those from county election boards and Secretary of State offices. The different formats, layouts, and timeliness of reports paralleled the variety of choices TV viewers were provided in its early years.
Marketing is critical to the success of an elections web site. In a move to encourage its residents to follow the elections online the DuPage County, Illinois Election Commission included its URL on the “I Voted Today” stickers it handed out to voters – just one laudable example among many across the country this past Election Day.