Online electioneering heating up

May 31, 2010 in Elections, Rants & Raves
Tags: ALP, Australia, Australian Greens, ballot box, democracy, federal government, government, Greens, Internet, Labor Party, Liberals, online activism, online campaigning, online organizing, political parties, politics, polls, voters, voting

Australia’s main political parties, the Labor Party, the Liberals and the Greens, have all just recently launched new websites. There are unconfirmed rumours the Labor Party is about to re-launch with additional “community” features. Yet within the last week, the Labor Party has started to come under fire for sponsoring and endorsing a Twitter account called Phoney_Tony to heckle Tony Abbott. I’ve commented in the past, and just recently, about the approach Australia’s political parties take to using the Internet and engaging with social media.

This kind of engagement can only make things more difficult for the ALP, and not seen as something funny or worthwhile. It could also encounter significant backlash from Twitter users as they tend to be repelled by this kind of behaviour.

However, while this is taking place the Liberals launched their website quietly. They have attempted to appear to be interactive but fail to provide any interactivity for non-members. Supporters would find it difficult participating without first becoming a party member. While there are merits to this approach to keep out trolls, it means that you are still only preaching to the converted and not widening or deepening the level of interaction with new and potential supporters, voters and members.

The Greens only just (within last 3 days) launched their new website. It offers more functionality and enables a basic level of interaction without forcing someone to become a party member. However, more significant involvement requires party membership. Even a basic level of interactivity is better than what’s on offer from ALP and Liberals.

The online electioneering is really beginning to kick off as the main parties. In my opinion, to-date the Greens are the political party best using social media with the exception of stand-outs like Kristina Keneally.

But the gloves are definitely off when it comes to online electioneering, even if it won’t be the web2.0 election.