Dotcom votes set to click on for local body polling

By ADAM GIFFORD

Online voting has moved a step closer with United States company election.com buying a Christchurch firm that specialises in software for local body elections.

The purchase of Accent Computer Services is one of a number of acquisitions designed to confirm the New York-based company as the global brand for voting technology.

Election.com New Zealand will offer internet voting to supplement paper-based systems.

"People are ready for it," said NZ managing director Steve Kilpatrick. "It's more convenient than postal balloting and the results are available faster."

The first New Zealand online election will involve the Central Hawkes Bay Power Trust in October. Waipukurau's Fuzzy Logic is talking with election.com about using its technology for the ballot.

"As well as the postal vote, we are giving voters the chance to participate in a dummy online election," said Fuzzy Logic director Ben Smith.

Online voting has the potential to be more accurate, as getting people to click on boxes avoids the spoiled votes which blight paper ballots.

While election.com was registered in February last year, those behind it have been running ballots for some years for private sector groups, non-profit organisations, trade unions, pension funds, public firms and state governments.

It held the first legally binding public election over the internet for the Arizona Democratic Party presidential primary in March.

It mailed notice of the election to the 850,000 registered Democrats in the state, including an official voting certificate with a personal identification number and a detachable "vote-by-mail" application.

People could vote by post, on the internet before the election day, or at a polling booth by paper ballot or internet kiosk on the day.

In 1996, only 12,800 Democrats voted and fewer than 40,000 voted at the two previous elections. This year, there were 86,559 votes cast, a 676 per cent increase.

"We can do the complete process over the internet, but we believe the process needs to be evolved," said election.com senior vice-president Bill Taylor.

Mr Taylor said different levels of security could be established from full digital certificates and multi-level log-ins to simpler systems.

Political consultant Rex Widerstrom, who has attempted to promote internet voting in New Zealand, said political issues rather than technology were holding back the adoption of electronic voting.

He said referendums could drive its adoption.

"At the moment we are told referendums are so expensive to run, and it's no small ask to get one going," he said.

"The general public will demand this when they see it is a way to get some control over the political process."