JUST as the candidates' faces have appeared overnight on the poles and lampposts across the land, so, too, the electronic equivalents of the leaflets, posters and placards are now fluttering across cyberspace.
This is the first Irish election in which all the major parties have extended their canvassing to the World Wide Web. By last Friday most of their online sites - as well as dozens of others by lobby groups and media organisations - had already switched into election mode.
The largest party, Fianna Fail, now has an online voting booth, a "media centre", a party history, a news group discussion area, and even a "Fianna Fail the Republican Party Gift Catalogue", where you can order your official FF golfballs and FF baseball caps. Not to be outdone, the next largest party, Fine Gael, gives its version of Irish history, and a competition with first prize of a trip to the White House, and runner up prizes of Michael Collins videos.
Then there are the media's election sites: ones by The Irish Times, RTE and leading Web indexer Yahoo give analysis, predictions, clickable constituency maps, results since 1945, fact sheets on how the PR system works and glossaries.
Alongside these media professionals are some very professional looking sites by third level colleges and individuals. In fact, the first Irish election page appeared back on St Patrick's Day (at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8932). It's the work of Keith Mills, a thirtysomething computer analyst from Limerick now based in Dublin. He says he's a floating voter, "I have however, a deep interest in Irish politics, and I have been a keen spectator of elections, even before I was old enough to vote."
Many of the parties' official sites still haven't put their policies online yet, though others indicate that it's turning out to be the first digital election in another sense. Fragments and details of various "information society" strategies, from the number of PCs in schools to national networking infrastructures, have finally arrived on their agendas...