A Web of Information on Candidates, Issues

Four years ago, political Web sites were bare-bones affairs. But now Web sites by candidates, voter-advocacy groups and even for-profit Internet companies abound.

Many are sophisticated multi-service sites with new information posted daily. Others are in the process of developing resources, such as sample ballots, that could be helpful come election day. Either way, if you want to research a political issue, check campaign contributions or even buy a bumper sticker, you can do it on the Web.

“A lot of people are not satisfied with just a 30-second TV spot to make an election choice,” said Kim Alexander, president of California Voter Foundation (https://www.calvoter.org), a pioneer in online political information. “The Internet is a great tool because it’s available 24 hours a day. . . . It’s convenient for busy voters to get informed, who want to do so on their own time.”

Even so, a recent Harvard University study showed that only 10% of all Internet users had logged onto a political Web site.

“Optimistic claims about the Internet fail to account for people’s interest in politics,” says Tami Buhr, research coordinator for the survey. “Unless people, young or old, are interested in the presidential campaign, they are not likely to attend to it, even if they use the Internet regularly.”

But Internet proponents are confident those numbers will grow as the primaries and fall election approach. Presidential campaigns say their Web sites are getting increasing traffic every month. The item with the most number of clicks from viewers? Issue statements.

Insurgent Republican candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona had 321,000 hits in May of last year, but by October that number had surged to 4.4 million.

Candidates also are using the Web to solicit donations and volunteers. Lynn Reed, designer of the Web site for Democrat Bill Bradley, said she has more than 30,000 e-mail addresses of folks who have contacted the site to volunteer.

In addition to occasionally dry information, there are gimmicks aplenty. Republican multimillionaire Steve Forbes offers a chatty daily audio address. Vice President Al Gore, Bradley’s Democratic rival, has photo galleries from the trail. Even candidates with less funding are making good use of less fancy Web pages.

Republican Alan Keyes’ home page offered instant links to an Internet site sponsored by Fox News Channel’s Dick Morris, allowing viewers to vote for him as the best performer in a December debate. It may help explain why Keyes, a former ambassador, came out the winner in that unscientific survey.

There are numerous nonpartisan sites as well, and logging onto any one of them will allow you to link with thousands of others. But there are different types of sponsors.

Once the domain of good-government groups, which as early as 1994 provided online voter guides to help the public track issues or campaign contributions, political portals are increasingly being set up by businesses backed by big venture capital. Netivation, a for-profit company that aims to become the leader in Internet political content, is even buying up or partnering with some nonpartisan groups. But Netivation also has numerous political campaigns and parties as clients.

Alexander cautions that not all Web sites are alike and that there are potential privacy issues. Information you provide online could be sold to campaigns or other direct-mail efforts.

“There is a potential there for conflict of interest,” Alexander said. “Some of these sites may be trying to make money through advertising. A lot of them are also trying to make money by selling political data on their site visitors. . . . This can be very sensitive. People may not want everybody to know which party they’re registered to. Read the fine print, look at the privacy policy, think about what you’re seeing.”

Sites often offer information about themselves if you click on “About Us,” “How to Contact Us” or “Clients.”