At the very moment I'm writing this, the election results from the local elections in Norway are about to be finalized. The election results do not interest me too much right now. What I am disappointed about is the fact that although most of the parties have tripled the daily hit-rate on their official websites throughout the election, it seems none of the parties care too much about reaching out to the growing part of the electorate that is taking to the Internet to retrieve information about the election.
The Norwegian webzine NA24 wrote this week that the number of voters taking to the web to seek out information about the local election is at a record high.
"Compared the Norwegian national election two years ago we have ten times as many people visiting our website," Steinar Haugsvær, communication director for The Liberal party, said to NA24 earlier this week.
"There is no doubt the Internet is one of the most important communication channels in this election to reach voters," he added.*
We here at BlogCampaigning could not agree more - the Internet is becoming an important communication channel in Norwegian elections. Our question, however, is: How are The Liberal Party and the rest of the political parties in Norway using the Internet different from the national election two years ago?
To us it looks like nothing has changed! When are Norwegian political parties going to open up their websites to two-way communication?
-Espen
*Translated by Espen from Norwegian