Very few would argue that the websites of candidates are becoming increasingly important as citizens turn to the Internet for information and first impressions of politicians and their campaigns.

Following the announcement of Pat Edmonson’s campaign for Lt. Governor of Virginia, I posted a link to her website. It’s new newly redesigned, and now offers a decent amount of information about Edmonson and her positions on issues important to Virginia, and the nation.

A key component to a campaign website is the collection of supporter information and the opportunity given to visitors to donate to the campaign. The Edmonson website accomplishes both of these tasks with two simple forms located on the front page.

For the collection of contributions, the Edmonson campaign is using ActBlue, which is an secure online clearinghouse for political contributions to progressives campaigns and political groups. More politicians are turning to this website to manage their online contributions, as it not only enables them to collect contributions on their website, but also allows others to link to their campaign account and feed contributions to them from other sites. 100% of these funds are available to the campaigns, with ActBlue providing an opportunity to contributors to add a percentage to their contribution to support the service. Virginia Beach Progressives utilizes ActBlue on its sidebar to give visitors an opportunity to contribute to candidates it supports.

Compared to Jody Wagner’s site, who is also from Virginia Beach and running for Lt. Governor, Edmonson’s site is a bit lacking. Wagner is incorporating a variety online services into her site, such as Twitter and Flickr, to share what she’s doing on the campaign trail. For example, at this moment, I know that 16 hours ago Wagner, “Spent the day in Hampton Roads meeting with enthusiastic Virginians. I also attended the Women’s Review Luncheon.” Edmonson also links out Facebook, Flickr, Myspace, and YouTube, but there’s not really any melding of these services into her site. I’m not sure how effective using these tools are in gaining support and votes, but it really does add a dynamic to the site; sort of a feeling of momentum.

After reviewing the websites of all five candidates for Lt. Governor, overall I’d rank them like this:

1. Jody Wagner (D)
2. Jon Bowerbank (D)
3. Bill Bolling (R, Incumbent)
4. Pat Edmonson (D)
5. Rich Savage (D)

Edited to add: This post lent itself toward site design, tools used, etc. Not about issues. I really need to pull some issues posts together for both the Gov. and Lt. Gov. primaries. The ranking had nothing to do about how I feel about the issues of candidates, just how I personally (and somewhat arbitrarily) ranked their sites.

Related posts:

1. Edmonson reaches out to GLBT community
2. Statewide candidates begin to submit signatures [Updated 3-27-09 12:18 AM]