Principles for local election candidate websites

Saturday, 17 May, 2025 — civics

My wife and I spent some time this morning over breakfast and coffee researching candidates for an upcoming local primary election. Having spent about 90 minutes looking for information, it’s clear that many local candidates do not present themselves well online.

There are several issues candidates present:

• Not having a website at all
  • There are some uncontested races where there’s effectively zero candidate information available
• Expecting that Facebook acts as an effective website
  • One candidate had Facebook as the entirety of their online presence
  • Facebook essentially expects readers to have and use Facebook accounts and I am not enthused with Facebook tracking my activity on a candidate’s Facebook page
  • Facebook pages generally are incomplete and ineffective websites
• Not looking at how the site lays out on a phone or tablet
  • One candidate we were looking at had CSS layout issues where their photo and their introductory text ran together, with the photo covering up the text
• Having a single page site that focuses on endorsements, issue pull quotes, and invitations to donate, and stop there
  • This is a start of what’s essential, but woefully incomplete

Particularly during a primary process, candidates not making an affirmative case for themselves are easily dismissed from consideration, even when they run unopposed. This affects incumbents and challengers alike.

Local candidate websites don’t need to be nearly as detailed or as flashy as a gubernatorial or presidential campaign. They should be present, though, and somewhat evergreen for the entire election cycle. Have the key information available for primary and, after some refreshing, general campaign voters. I prefer more detailed, but static, information about the candidate’s views than I do about seeing social media posts.

Simplicity in the presentation also benefits. I believe there’s more benefit in simpler layouts and more informational detail.

Here are the qualities I find valuable in a candidate website:

• It exists on the open web as a regular website with its own domain
• It’s viewable across phones, tablets, and laptops
• The layout can be basic, but it’s readable, images load quickly, video content is optional, and does not suffer from layout collisions, overlap, or poor contrast
• The website meets basic accessibility standards

The website provides prospective votes with core information:

• Who the candidate is
• What office they are running for
• Why they are running
• Their vision for how they seem themselves in office
• Their core issues and a summary of positions
• When to vote
• Donation and volunteer opportunities

As mentioned above, the candidate website does not stop there. The website also provides deeper background for voters:

• The candidate’s biography and qualifications for office
• Deeper articulation of their core issues
  • What perceived benefits do they want to continue or improve upon?
  • What problems do they want to tackle
  • Not only do I want to see what the issues are for the candidate, I want to understand their perspective and framing of those issues
• Debates and campaign appearances, past and present
  • Particularly for debates, when there are any, links to transcripts and recordings are very helpful
• News articles and other media appearances

Local media is stretched thin. For a lot of this cycle’s races in our area, there’s not much in the way of debates, candidate questionares, or endorsements. Candidates should help fill their prospective voters in and a substantial part of that is a competently designed informational website.

Campaigns have outreach options. Text messaging registered voters is obnoxiously present and persistent. Mailers introduce a candidacy and remind voters about key issues and voting dates. Campaign events can offer volunteers and donors camaraderie, coherence, and community. Debates help establish common ground and contrasts between candidates. But, those are all incomplete and shallow.

Any political candidate should have some manner of website. Good candidacies have good websites, though. Deeper websites force a deeper level of thinking, articulation, and engagement between a candidate and prospective voters. That’s what I want to see and consider when I’m evaluating candidates.

For me, if a candidate doesn’t have a website informing voters of what they stand for and why they should earn a vote, I am skeptical the candidate has thought through and can articulate those points to themself and their campaign.