In a bid to boost its election coverage, the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman gave local political candidates the power to blog on its Web site.

The blogs were powered by software from Pluck Corp.; the paper earlier this year said it would test Pluck’s BlogBurst syndication service software, which enables papers to display comments from any blogger who wants to distribute his or her commentary.

Pluck said that the American-Statesman was the first newspaper using its app to offer local candidates the opportunity to set up a free blog, which were posted on statesman.com’s Election Coverage section.

“We launched reader blogs in 2005 in conjunction with the Austin City Limits music festival and we’ve been using blogs in a variety of ways since then,” said Tim Lott, assistant managing editor for The American-Statesman’s Web sites. After an American-Statesman staffer suggested the paper offer politicians a chance to hop on the blog bandwagon, the paper decided to launch the service, Lott said.

Some 13 local politicians ultimately posted blogs, ranging from candidates vying to join Congress to those running for county clerk.

“Allowing a candidate to blog on statesman.com isn’t much different than running an extended excerpt of a political stump speech in the newspaper,” said Lott.