Peter Sinclair: Online elections

E-commerce has proven something of a challenge to even the most entrepreneurial free-marketeers. I wonder if bureaucrats will cope any better with e-government?
For, according to the current Economist, this notoriously phlegmatic bunch is staring straight down the barrel of the Next Big Thing.

"All over the world, people dealing with Government departments are [engaging] in dreary, time-consuming activities they would much rather avoid.

"[But in] Arizona, the locals have a choice. Instead of having to stand in a queue at the motor vehicle department, they can go online and renew their registrations, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in a transaction that takes an average of two minutes.

"With 15 per cent of renewals now processed by ServiceArizona, the motor vehicle department saves around $1.7 million a year.

"What's more, ServiceArizona hasn't cost taxpayers a cent to set up, and is free to users."

IBM created it - and skims 2 per cent of the takings, the kind of symbiosis between public and private sectors we'll probably see a lot of in e-government.

It looks as though our own bureaucratic stick-in-the-muds may soon have to resign themselves to seeing stuff pass from their in-trays to their out-trays at more than the usual speed, as the company that conducted the web's first legally binding public election (this year's Arizona Democratic presidential primary) roars through Australasia in acquisition mode.

Election.com has "a profound belief" both in the ability of the internet to strengthen the democratic process and its own global destiny. Two months ago, it darted into Europe and pounced on British election-services company Unity Security Balloting.

It set up a presence in the Middle East and Africa, then it was on to Australia to pick up Canberra's Know1 and tiny Ballot and Elections Solutions in Burpengary, Queensland, whose poor little website has only ever been visited by 149 people.

Now it's our turn. It has not only wooed and won local government software specialist Accent Computer Services of Christchurch, a company owned by Noel Thomas and Steve Kilpatrick (election.com's newly appointed local managing director), but there has also been some heavy petting going on in Hawkes Bay with Fuzzy Logic, a design and consultancy company which also happens to be returning officer for the Central Hawkes Bay Power Trust, soon to hold New Zealand's first online election of trustees.

After speaking with them both last week, I can't help feeling it would take men of steelier resolve than managing director Warwick Lampp and IT director Ben Smith to spurn the advances of a US suitor who occupies a spot on Red Herring's Top 50 private companies.

Nor did Bill Taylor, election.com's visiting senior vice-president, strike me as the kind of man to take no for an answer. He's champing at the bit to get this whole New Zealand thing off the ground. Now.
He indicated he's about to start badgering the Government, although if the Government Statistician's attitude to an e-census when I spoke to him earlier this year is any indication, badgering may not be quite enough.

Gelignite springs to mind.

Lies, damned lies...

The Sky Is Sagging: Thompson Financial says 639 internet-related mergers/acquisitions racked up nearly $37 billion last year.

Now that the iron rule of business - no cashflow, no company - has reasserted itself, the long-awaited contraction is under way.

Surfing Mums: US mothers on the net have quadrupled from 4.5 million in 1997 to 16.4 million today, according to Grunwald Associates.

And the kids are still hitched to the apron-strings - the number of wired children under 17 has tripled.

Wap Zap: Growth-estimates for short-text-messaging exceed those of internet usage, according to Logica.

Worldwide, mobile-phone users will send 100 billion monthly by December 2002, 20 times today's volume.

Taking Over: China is overhauling Australia as the second-largest Asian-Pacific IT market, after the Japanese.

By 2004 it will triple last year's $11 billion, according to IDC.

Spending Up Larger: Global IT spending continues to grow faster [at 9 per cent] than GDP - over $2 trillion last year, says the World Information Technology and Services Alliance.

Bookmarks:

MOST ARTFUL:

Most businesses are more concerned with keeping hackers out than luring them in.

Not so the operatives at SecurityFocus, as they probe "the Motives and Psychology of the Black-Hat Community" in their fascinating Know Your Enemy series.

Build your own "honeypot," or buy one from PGP and gain unique insight into the hacking process and the hacker's mind.

Advisory: it pays to be paranoid

HOTTEST: Zaplets

New from FireDrop, Zaplets have already been caught in the headlights of high-powered venture-capitalists Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers - so what are they?

E-mail, but with dynamic features once associated only with the web and instant messaging. Zaplets update in your inbox as recipients reply and add new information.

Fun, fun, fun and virus-writers will probably love them, too.

Advisory: will doodads never cease?

Links:

Economist

Service Arizona

election.com


Elections Solutions

Accent Computer Services

Fuzzy Logic

Central Hawkes Bay Power Trust

Red Herring

Thompson Financial

Cnet news

Grunwald Associates

Logica

IDC

World Information Technology and Services Alliance

Honeynet Project

Security Focus

PGP

Zaplet

Email: petersinclair@email.com