US election: Will the internet boost turnout?

By Steve Schifferes
BBC News

Joe Lieberman lost the Connecticut primary after being attacked online

The internet is likely to be a key factor in the all-important drive to get people to vote in the US mid-term elections, with the Democrats hoping to overcome the Republican advantage in this area in previous elections.

The internet became a key part of the electoral process in the US in the 2004 presidential election, with one-quarter of voters receiving election news online, and one in five of internet users looking at election news every day.

And the early evidence suggests that the internet continues to be a major source of news in the mid-term elections, with 19% of internet users turning to election news daily, according to a poll for the Pew Internet and American Life project carried out in August.

As in the UK, the growth in internet news has been driven by the spread of broadband connections. And in both countries, politics on the internet has been of particular interest to younger people, those who have higher education, and men.

But in the US, the internet has not just been significant as a source of news and information.

Political tool

It has also become increasingly important as a mobilising tool for political parties.

Twice as many people in the US looked at political party websites in the 2004 vote as people in the UK did for the 2005 general election, and three times as many received election news e-mails from candidates or parties.

You Tube images of Senator George Allen undermined his campaign

The internet was particularly important in raising money for the Democrats, who were harder hit by the campaign finance reforms introduced in 2003.

The Democratic candidate for President, John Kerry, raised 25% of the money for his campaign online, countering the initial Republican fundraising advantage.

And the internet played a key role in the primary campaign of Howard Dean, the anti-war candidate who gained an early lead in the race for the Democratic nomination for president by mobilising his supporters online.

But the Republicans developed a highly effective electronic data base which enabled them to target individual voters - and their hot-button issues - which helped them get more of their supporters out to vote in 2004, playing a crucial role in their narrow electoral victory.

Getting out the vote

In the 2006 mid-terms, the internet has become even more important for political campaigns.

This time the Democrats are hoping to use it to overcome the Republican advantage in getting out the vote, rather than concentrating on fundraising.

The website Move.on, which generally supports Democratic candidates, has organised a system of telephone canvassing in key swing districts through "rock the house parties" and "call for a change" to reach a million progressive voters.

It claims to have operations in 40 congressional districts and to have trained 70,000 people to use their web-based phone lists to canvass support.

Local candidates, such as Democrat Deval Patrick, who could be the first African American to become governor of Massachusetts, are also emphasising turnout on their websites.

Many candidates have embraced the web as an organising tool

Mr Patrick is using the internet to build a team of fundraisers, campaign workers and a supporters network - he now has a commanding lead in the polls over Republican candidate Kerry Healey.

But the Republicans are also exploiting their more centralised database to mobilise supporters, sending out e-mail and mobile phone alerts to remind their supporters to vote, and giving information about how to vote early by absentee ballot in certain states on their website.

With less than 40% of the electorate expected to vote in the mid-terms, turn-out could be the key to victory in many key races.

"I think we've closed the gap, but I don't think we are there yet," Mr Dean, now the Democratic national party chairman, told the New York Times earlier this week.

Helping the underdog

Just as in 2004, the internet has also played a significant role in helping the underdog, particularly in primary campaigns, where the focus is mainly on party activists.

The insurgent campaign of Ned Lamont, who defeated Connecticut Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman (the party's 2000 vice-presidential candidate) by focusing on his support for President Bush and the Iraq war, was boosted by negative images of Mr Lieberman posted by left-leaning Democratic bloggers.

In the primary, Mr Lieberman's campaign was slow to respond to attacks on his record online, including the repeated showing of a video clip of Mr Lieberman being embraced by President Bush on You Tube.

But as in 2004, what mobilises activists may not be as effective with the general public, and Mr Lieberman, who is now standing as an independent, appears to be leading in the polls.

Negative campaigning

The use of the Lieberman video is an example of another striking trend in online campaigning this year - thee mobilisation of the internet's social networking sites for campaigning - much of it negative.

Video ads have generated controversy during the election campaign

In the close race for the Senate seat in Tennessee - being vacated by Republican majority leader Bill Frist - Republicans have gained wide exposure for their tongue-in-cheek campaign ad linking Democrat Harold Ford Jnr with a Playboy model (the ad claims he took money from "porn movie producers").

In return, Democratic bloggers have found pictures of the daughter of the Republican candidate, Bob Corker, kissing a girl on the lips on the college website Facebook.com.

Also widely circulated on the internet were remarks by Virginia's Republican Senator George Allen, who called one of his Asian critics a "macaca" at a public meeting.

This race, once seen as a Republican shoo-in, is now too close to call.

In Missouri, an ad by Michael J Fox, the actor who has Parkinson's disease, in support of Democrat Claire McCaskell and stem cell research, which was also seen online, caused controversy when talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said Mr Fox had exaggerated his symptoms to get more sympathy.

The use of video in political campaigns reflects the dramatic rise in video-sharing sites in the US.

On average, US internet users viewed 63 video streams per month, or two per day, according to Comscore - with YouTube and MySpace accounting for 30% of all video downloads.

Lessons for the future

The effectiveness of this "viral marketing" strategy will be closely watched by campaigners for both parties as the 2008 presidential campaign begins.

As the internet continues to evolve, and to become part of the of US life, especially for younger people, it has become more interwoven in the fabric of politics.

Now that the race to be the next US president is about to begin, the internet has become the crucial tool for fundraising, attracting supporters, and mobilising voters.

And those candidates and parties that have best learned the lessons of internet campaigning are going to have a big advantage in the 2008 election.

Steve Schifferes studied the role of the internet in US and UK elections as a Reuters Fellow at Oxford earlier this year. His research will be published as a pamphlet by the Oxford Internet Institute.