State Parties and the Web

Though not directly related to this course, it is important to look at how the internet has changed state party organizations. State parties pretty much all have websites and they range from very good to terrible. Voters can go on and view profiles of the elected officials of the party in the state, party officers, read the platform and find out what campaigns are hot in their areas. This however can only occur if the websites are properly maintained as there are many state parties (including some with full-time Webmaster) that leave their websites stagnate. This can be demoralizing to an activist and a show of mediocrity to a voter.
One major breakthrough on the Democratic side at least in my opinion has been the use of web-based voter files run by state parties. In this way, campaigns can scan in their voter data to a master database at the state party and retrieve the information they need when necessary. The other advantage is that this data can be carried over from election cycle to cycle and different types of voters can be tracked in various areas. Over a few cycles, one can run a query of ID's in the area and figure out who is truly a swing voter, a behavioral Dem or behavioral Republican.

However, what happens if the server crashes 2 days before election when everyone is printing GOTV lists?