After the election, the authors coded candidates with Web sites as winners or losers and found that whether or not they had a Web site did not effect the outcome of the election. However, the Internet did have an effect on how the campaign was run, including fundraising, management and internal communications. The second method of inviting the donor to print out a form and send in a donation solves the problem of missing information, but delay in processing the check still remains. Nearly half of the candidates solicited pledges from visitors to their sites. Although the candidate must estimate the amount of money they will have to work with, based on the pledge, they collect important information.
All candidates using Web sites increase the potential for facilitating illegal contributions.
A smart campaign will require that the donor state whether the credit card is for personal use or not. Overall, the amount of money raised online is small compared with overall money raised. In order to reap the benefits of the technology, methods need to be developed with the political environment in mind, not simply adapted from commercial uses. The Internet offers several ways to improve campaigns in order to make them more accurate, legal and democratic. In addition, the Internet may change the way candidates think about communities in terms of geography.