Democratic Party Websites: Part II | by Skye
Now for some county websites, looking at the same factors as in Part I.
The Travis County Party website has current info on the front page, a very prominent link to the mailing list signup, and a link for registering to vote in the left nav. They also have a good calendar of events. The "Get Involved" page at least has some language that sounds welcoming - though they talk about becoming a precinct chair without any explanation of what that is.
Then it gets dicey.
The "Contact Us" page is apparently where you would go to find local clubs and the list of links - and the link list has some errors and formatting problems. (Their link list, though, does have some descriptive text for each link.) And the real problem, in my opinion: they created online forums, but the forums are dead. Only 23 registered users, and only 10 posts since the end of March. That looks embarrassing. At least, staff should have gone in and posted more content than this.
The Harris County Democratic Party, by contrast, is sponsoring a blog called Houston Democrats which I've been reading for a while. It focuses on local events, calls to action, and getting people motivated by reporting some of the bad, bad things that Republicans are doing. :) Without much ugly language, though, which is refreshing. It has a very positive, constructive tone. There is a prominent link to the blog on the Harris County Party homepage - which right now also has a list called "Good Things From Democrats." Nice work. (I like it a lot better than the current news on the front pages of the state party, which is about hating Tom DeLay. The Travis County Party has an article that reports the court decision, but focuses on Ann Kitchen. Much better.)
The organization of their navigation is also a dream come true, and includes a link to a volunteer form that I find much more helpful than the other ones I've seen. It's easy to find local club info. They have a few too many links that open other windows, but then again I think one is too many.
Using Google I had found this article on precinct chairing on the Harris County website, which I cannot find through the site's nav, and I found something very, very similar at Bexar County's site. I like these because to someone like me, "Precinct Chair" is abstract and intimidating. I need information about what that would look like before I'd be willing to do it. As Practical Progressive Activist points out in a blog post, this kind of work is similar to many kinds of volunteer effort:
There are precinct chairs in my area who have had the position for years and years and years. They do it because they want to be the election judge. BUT, they don't want to do the basic organizational work such as block walking, passing out flyers, and building a precinct committee. Since there has been such a shortage of precinct chairs in the past, I think the philosophy has been that somebody who would do even a little work is better than nobody.
But that doesn't mean it's not needed. Just like work on the Parties' electronic presence is needed in Travis County and at the State level. I know that late last year, I was criticizing their sites and strategy without having been there much. Now I have a better idea of their strengths and weaknesses - and better yet, what we could do to help.