ABSTRACT
The primary players in the online drama were the political parties, the candidates, the media, and the electorate. They were joined by a smattering of public interest groups, watchdog groups, get-out-the-vote campaigns, pollsters, and academics who watched the whole thing unfold. Each learned something about how to effectively use the Internet in a national election. Some media coverage of the election on the Internet seemed half-hearted and uneven. Several papers used the same reporters to write and post stories for their Web site as for their print newspaper, creating an Internet product composed of "shovelware". Political parties, candidates, and other partisan groups created Web sites to publish election material, raise funds, organize, register voters, and make contact with the media. Online voting became a hot topic during the primaries, when the Arizona Democratic party used it, and the idea was revisited when the vote in Florida exposed the fragile and dilapidated state of our current voting system.
