For example, the three Democratic frontrunners—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards—have all dedicated space on their Web sites to educating voters on how to navigate a caucus.

Obama’s and Edwards’ campaigns have focused exclusively on the Iowa caucus, providing a great deal of information easily found on the Iowa pages of their campaign Web sites. Obama’s site has a Web page, The Caucus Center, featuring a video spoofing old grade school films, with a dry voiceover and interview with a former Iowa Election Official. In addition to the video, Iowa voters can find descriptions of the process and can sign up for rides to the caucus and childcare while they’re at the caucus. Obama’s site also offers a non-video Flash tutorial that breaks down the caucus process into its bare bones and walks them through it without any superfluous information.

Edwards’s Web site features a video that uses comic book still-frames to explain the caucus process. And the video recognizes how some seemingly mundane factors—a big time football bowl game!—can impact caucus turnout and tells people how they can caucus and get the game in too. Interestingly, Edwards also describes what happens when a candidate does not get the necessary threshold support needed for a delegate—and how the backers of that candidate must then choose to group with a second choice. Clearly, Edwards is hoping that second choice will be him.

Clinton’s campaign presents much of the same information on its Web site, but seems to have focused on the Nevada caucus for education purposes. Whereas her Iowa caucus Web site requires that people offer contact information to receive any information and her video tutorial is tucked away in video archives, her Nevada Web site has most of the vital information easily accessed online in English and Spanish. Clinton’s video uses locals and humor, such as her husband’s well-publicized struggle to exercise and lay off the cheeseburgers, to convey the message of how easy it is to caucus by comparison. Clinton’s Iowa Web site does provide a link offering voters the opportunity to “Caucus with a Buddy,” which is a great tool encouraging voters to hook up with reminders of the caucus beforehand and then arranging to attend together, but unfortunately, this tool is hidden in a list of other opportunities to get involved below the scroll in fine print.

Emily’s List, a group supporting Clinton, supplements her campaign’s effort with its own effort at teaching voters how to caucus, the “You Go Girl!” caucus guide. On its Web site it has a guide to caucusing as well as a video detailing questions and answers on caucusing with local women. And Emily’s List has taken it another step further. In a shrewd marketing move, the group has paid for a sponsored link on Google, so that when you enter the search term “Iowa Caucus,” the first item the searcher sees is “You Go Girl!”

The candidates’ initiatives to turn out new voters are commendable, but their efforts fall short in that they will, understandably, only reach their supporters. The Nevada State Democratic Committee also offers a video discussing the process on its Web site dedicated to the caucus, although it too has the feel of a film you might have watched in middle school, and not necessarily in a way that is funny. Moreover, despite the creation of a Spanish version caucus Web site, Nuestro Caucus http://www.nuestrocaucus.com/, it does not have an equivalent tutorial in Spanish.

The effort to use the Web in creative ways to teach voters about caucusing needs to be expanded for it to have a meaningful impact. For example, the Iowa Democratic Party Web site currently has training materials, but they are presented as a PowerPoint presentation and clearly are not targeted to the average voter since they include considerably more information than the average caucus-attendee needs in order to participate. Surprisingly, Rock the Caucus, an initiative sponsored by Rock the Vote, only provides written materials on the caucus process, even for its presumably younger audience. The materials on www.Iowacaucus.org—sponsored by the State of Iowa to inform citizens about the process—also fall flat

And why aren’t the major Republican candidates following suit with videos and caucus information for their own supporters? The Republicans caucus system is simpler, so perhaps the Republican candidates and the party perceive less of a need. Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate with caucus information on his Web site, providing fact sheets for voters on both the Iowa and Nevada caucuses.

Nonetheless, whatever the shortcomings, the efforts by the Democratic frontrunners portend a positive trend as the campaign season goes forward. While all the candidates have certainly caught on to using the Internet to rake in money and issue the latest press releases, at least the Democratic candidates have added a new use that can help increase participation (even if it is targeted only at their supporters): educating voters on voting itself in an engaging way that was not possible in a less technological age. We look forward to seeing if not only candidates, but the parties, elections officials and civic organizations expand upon this concept as the primaries and caucuses draw near.

Tova Andrea Wang is a Democracy Fellow and Kristen Oshyn is a Program Assistant at The Century Foundation.