Radio stations spend plenty of time telling people about the candidates and what’s at stake in an election. We interview the people running, cover the issues, and prepare to report the results. But somewhere between the campaign coverage and election night, there’s a simpler opportunity for the station website: helping listeners figure out how to participate.
Where do I vote? How do I check my registration? Where can I see a sample ballot? These may not be questions that lead a newscast, but they’re questions your listeners are asking. Your website should make the answers easy to find, even if that means pointing people to the election office that has them.
I’d start with one election information page that brings the useful links and the station’s coverage together. Give it an obvious name, put a visible link on the homepage, and make it easy to mention on the air. “Find local voting information at our website” becomes a much better invitation when listeners know exactly where to go once they arrive.
You don’t have to recreate the county election website. Link to official resources for registration, polling locations, sample ballots, and information about absentee or early voting where available. If your station serves several counties, organize those links by county so visitors can quickly find the information that applies to them. The station’s contribution is making those resources easier to find and understand.
Be careful about copying dates and instructions onto the page without a plan to check them again. Once that information appears on your website, people will reasonably expect it to be accurate. Assign someone to review the page, show when it was last checked, and direct readers to the appropriate election office for questions about their circumstances. A useful page with six verified links beats a comprehensive guide nobody has touched in two months.
This also gives your election coverage a home beyond the latest-posts feed. That candidate interview from three weeks ago may be more useful to someone today than it was when it aired. Put it where they can find it, along with forum recordings, local issue coverage, and other reporting that helps explain what’s on the ballot. Organizing those pieces by race or topic gives the work a longer life than another trip down the homepage.
Keep the presentation straightforward. Visitors should be able to recognize what comes from an election office, what your newsroom produced, and what a campaign paid to place. Use consistent formats for candidate coverage and label advertising clearly. Someone looking for voting information shouldn’t have to figure out whether a helpful-looking link is actually a campaign message.
Think about the person opening this page on a phone during a lunch break. They probably came with one question and a few minutes to answer it. Put the practical information near the top, use descriptive links, and save the long introduction. This is also a good place to keep the pop-ups and oversized ads under control. Don’t make someone close three things to find out where to vote.
Then give the page some airtime. Mention it during relevant interviews and newscasts, include it in your newsletter, and share it through the station’s social accounts. Your staff can use the same page when someone calls with a question. Building it is only part of the job; people need to know it exists.
As election night approaches, add where listeners can follow your coverage and find results. Clearly identify preliminary results and link to official sources as they become available. Afterward, update the page so someone arriving from an old social post isn’t greeted by instructions written entirely in the future tense.
Even a station without a full newsroom can put together a useful collection of official local resources. You already tell listeners that you’re part of the community. Helping them find something they need is a practical way to show it—and a better reason to visit the website than another reminder that the station has one.
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