CONVERSATION WITH THE PUBLISHER

About three weeks before the November 7 election, I spent two hours trying to learn how Illinois candidates were using Web sites. I ended up with mixed feelings.

I selected four competitive, so-called targeted House races (eight candidates total) and used key words to hunt for their sites. After about two hours, I had located only three of the eight candidates. In only one race did I find both candidates: the Champaign-Urbana area race featuring Republican Rick Winkel and his challenger Tod Satterthwaite. Both candidates posted basic biographical information, as well as opinions about the issues.

Those sites made me realize that with the new technology we have come a long way but still have a long way to go.

It should not take citizens so long to find Web sites. Another staff member here placed more than a few phone calls the next day to find out whether the other five candidates had sites. Yes, they did, but what ordinary voter has time for that kind of browsing?

The good news is that this year savvy citizens have access to the kind of information that campaign finance reformers envisioned when promoting legislation in recent years. When I was perusing the targeted candidates' sites, I noticed that Winkel had a button on his home page called "Financial Disclosure." I clicked on it and was linked directly to the State Board of Elections' official site. Lo and behold, as required by law, Winkel had filed a report electronically at 10:45 that morning, disclosing the names of four contributors who recently gave more than $500. I was looking at the site at 2 p.m., so within hours the board had uploaded the information for all to see. Ah, disclosure at its finest and fastest.

And that is only the beginning. Some people think candidates in the future will use Web sites more for give-and-take with voters than as a vehicle for information that looks like a brochure. The possibilities for more communication between candidates and voters is a sign of hope for democracy.

Congratulations to Laura Hogan, who had been on our staff since February. She left October 1 to go to the Illinois Legislative Staff Intemship Program. She is assigned to the House Republicans for the next 10 months. This program has helped many college-age students launch careers in Illinois state government. Two former interns, James Fletcher and Veronica Lynch, are now Illinois Issues Board members. They, along with former Gov. Jim Edgar, have been inducted into the Samuel K. Gove Legislative Intemship Hall of Fame. So Laura has some great role models to follow in that program. We wish her well.

www.uis.edu/~ilissues Illinois Issues November 2000 3