AKRON, Ohio — State Democratic and Republican parties need to upgrade their Web sites to reach more voters, a political study says.

        “If parties don't learn how to figure it out, they are going to be in the same place they were before radio, before television, before the Internet,” said Rick Farmer, one of the authors.

        The study, by Mr. Farmer and Julia Spiker of the University of Akron and Rich Fender of Kent State University, reviewed and compared the Web sites of 97 state parties that had Internet sites in last year's campaigns. The authors could not find Web sites for either Rhode Island state party, nor the Mississippi Democrats.

        The study was presented Thursday during the State of the Parties conference at Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute for Applied Politics.

        Political Web sites came into their own during the 1998 elections and were common in last year's contests. Their quality ranged from the slick sites produced by the presidential campaigns to basics-only pages for legislative and local candidates.

        The state party sites fell in between, said Mr. Farmer, an assistant political science professor at Akron. If the parties don't upgrade the sites, they risk being passed over by the candidates and causes they are trying to help.

        The parties have time to catch up because independent voters aren't looking for party information on the Internet, Mr. Farmer said.

        He said the Internet will be more valuable for state parties once voters have access to interactive television, which he thinks is five to 10 years away.

        “When you're watching television and you can click on the commercial for more information, that's when the Web site is going to be important,” he said.

        The study found that bigger states tended to have better pages than smaller states and that Republicans appear to be slightly ahead of Democrats in their technology. It also found that the state parties' home pages were their best feature but didn't provide adequate links to other sites.

        “The home page consists of more party functions than Web functions,” the authors wrote. “Parties should take note of the communications opportunities that they are missing.”

        However, party Web sites are just that — designed for partisans looking for party information, both Ohio parties said.

        “Our main focus for the Web site is to provide links to our candidates,” Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Kena Hudson said.

        “Our responsibility is to keep people informed about Ohio Republican Party activity,” spokesman Gary Abernathy said. “We feel that's why people come to us.”

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