By Chuck Malloy

Elections are a little more than a month away, which means it is time to look newspapers to be making its endorsements in elections for President, Congress and state legislative seats.

Endorsing candidates is a tradition that is about as old as the newspaper industry itself. Over the years, there has been constant debate as to whether newspapers should endorse editorial candidates. Proponents have long argued that endorsing candidates is the same as taking a stand on any other issue, while opponents have said that newspapers should have no right to try to tell people how to vote.

Editorial endorsements have served a useful purpose in elections. In the process, editors interview candidates about a wide range of issues, which voters typically do not have an opportunity to do. From there, the editorial boards judge the candidates on their strengths ad weakness and present their findings in the form of endorsements.

Sometimes editorial endorsements have an impact an sometimes they don’t. In recent years, the endorsements have lost a lot of their punch partly because of early voting and partly because voters have different ways of getting their information. These changes provide candidates many new opportunities for getting their message out.

One avenue is through websites, which allows candidates to do everything from solicit funds to provide information about who they re and what they stand for. They can record video messages, speeches and interviews if they wish. During this election cycle, I have worked with several candidates on website content – putting together materials such as personality profiles, letters to voters and issues of importance.

Websites are a win-win for the election process. If voters want to find out about candidates, they don’t have to wait for newspaper endorsements; all they need to do is click onto the candidate websites.

Not all candidates in Ada County and Idaho have websites, but the numbers are increasing with every election cycle. More and more candidates are realizing that websites are an excellent way to present their message to voters. They also realize that a well designed website is a positive reflection on them.