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It’s Election Day. Which candidates will get your vote? Maybe you’ve been watching the TV commercials or heard radio ads and interviews or read candidate profiles in the paper. If you’re like me, you usually flip the channel, change the station or turn the page. So how do candidates reach folks like me? They take their campaign online.

Many candidates choose to have a website to showcase more than they can tell you in their :30 commercials. Are they married? Where do their children attend school? Are these questions important to you? Well, yes, if you want someone in office who has similar values and will be genuinely concerned about the same education your child is receiving. But what else do they want you to know?

Let’s look at current Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson’s website. Upon first arrival, it’s what you would expect. A nice welcome, this is who I am, this is what I want to do for you. But Mayor Johnson is using a new online tactic to reach his voters: the blog. And you can’t miss it; it blinks in different colors so you know which link to click.

Taking a look at another candidate website, you’ll see the importance of keeping the public informed with press releases. LarryStuber.net showcases the candidate’s various appearances throughout the district and results from public forums. For those with the traditional click-through ADD, Stuber makes sure you get to see his seven step plan for Savannah before you leave his website.

But can you always trust what a candidate will say about themselves? If you are registered to vote on Tybee, like I am, you can leave it to others to share their opinions… very generously. For the last two weeks, my email inbox has been flooded with many unsolicited emails about the candidates running for Tybee Island City Council. I think this has been one of the dirtiest election years I have ever seen. I finally changed the settings on my spam filters to block the people who have been bombarding my inbox until after the election. For me personally, I know many of the candidates, I have followed the incumbents to know who shares my values for Tybee by attending council meetings and reading followups, so I know who will get my vote. I don’t need other people I do not know as well screaming in their emails that I need to vote against this person or that because they don’t have good intentions for the island (for those of you who are blessed enough to not be involved with that election, the majority of the issues center around the island’s skate park). If you are going to take my time away from watching the latest cute puppy video on YouTube, you better have something positive and convincing to say. Trash talk is only going to send you to my trash box.

So what can you do to make an informed decision? Research your candidates online. Do a Google search to see how they voted on previous decisions, see who else may be endorsing them, and get to know the opposition. For the City of Savannah, you can view biographies of the incumbents or review council meeting minutes for the last year.

Have questions about voting in the election today? You can get more information from the Chatham County Board of Registrars website including the requirements for a Georgia Voter Identification Card.

Please note: our descriptions of the candidate websites above do not reflect any endorsement by eMarketSouth.

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