Making e-voting count

The US has had a number of voting dramas over the last ten years, probably none so well documented as that of the Florida recount in the 2000 Presidential election that saw George Bush Jnr win.

As a result of the paper ballet issues uncovered by this and other elections, the US has introduced e-voting systems, but from a report in Infoworld, could have open the door to larger and more dangerous threats to the democratic process.

The article, Let's impeach e-voting, considers a recent software patching issue with e-voting machines and how simple it would be for proprietary paperless anonymous voting systems to be deliberately manipulated to provide a result.

This isn't a theoretical possibility - there have been several cases where US e-voting systems have resulted in statistically curious results and at least two elections where the outcome was changed by the application of a software patch.

As the systems in use do not retain a physical copy of a vote, being entirely paperless, there is no effective way to validate that the machines are tallying votes appropriately. All that can be determined is whether the total votes submitted is correct.

This is an election disaster waiting to happen - or perhaps it already has, how could we tell.

I hope that when Australia seriously considers electronic voting we look into systems providing some kind of guarantee that the outcome bears a striking resemblance to the votes of citizens.

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What share of your communications spend is on digital channels?

MarketingVox has release the article, Marketers' Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future, which reports on a US survey sponsored by Sapient of two hundred CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers).

The report indicates that more than a quarter of marketers said that half to all of their marketing is now done via digital channels. It also reported that nearly 40 percent foresee that in 12 months from half to all their marketing will be done via digital channels.

So what about in Australia?

In Australia we're a few years behind the US (which makes the US a useful predictor of our future).

The 2008 Australian Digital Marketing Trends Survey sponsored by NextDigital, involving 200 communicators across industries (including government) indicated that only around 10 percent of organisations dedicated between 25 and 50 percent of their marketing spend on digital.

However this was projected to grow to 40 percent of organisations within the next five years (by 2013).

It also found that in 2007 only 4 percent of Australian organisations were spending more than 50 percent of their marketing dollars on digital channels, but this was expected to grow to 19 percent in five years.

How is your organisation allocating its communications dollars?

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The business case for social media within a government department

Brought to my attention by the Victorian eGovernment Resource Centre, the below video from Shel Holzman provides an excellent summary of the value of social media as an set of egovernment tools within government intranets.

It addresses common misunderstandings and myths that have limited take-up, case studies of successful social media use and talks through appropriate applications for different tools.

Shel's video should be compulsory viewing for senior public sector executives who have an interest in improving the capture and dissemination of knowledge within their workplace, reduce the knowledge drain as babyboomers exit the workforce or improving their project management capacity and success rate.

By the way, Shel's regular podcast, The Hobson & Holtz Report, was to have a live phone in on 21 August discussing the topic of my blog post, the relationship between a strong commitment to internal communications and an effective intranet.

This has been postponed until 20 September, in case you want to catch it. The timing is tricky for Australians and New Zealanders, but it will be available on their site after the event.

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US public invited to review proposed patents in egovernment Peer-to-Patent initiative

The US Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO), is trialing opening the patent examination process to public participation.

This allows members of the public to review pending patent applications and provide input and feedback into the process of assessing patent claims.

In effect, the patent office is acknowledging that the US public has the capacity to improve the US patent process by providing due diligence and scrutiny that the USPTO is unable to provide.

Via the website Peer-to-Patent, members of the public are able to register to review a select set of 400 pending US patents, in an initial pilot program to assess the feasibility of inviting public comments on patent applications.

While I've only just become aware of it, this isn't a new initiative - the pilot has been running for over a year and has generated enormous interest across the patent community.

The Japanese opened their own version of the peer-to-patent site in July 2008, titled Community Patent Review.

This type of project reflects the crowdsourcing potential of the internet, inviting the community to participate, comment on and support (or indicate lack of support) of government-run initiatives, rather than being held at arms length and only consulted according to the government's preferred consultation medium.

Another example I have previously discussed is the New Zealand Wiki Policing Act 2008 which used an online wiki to suggest contents.

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egovernment across South-East Asia - towards seamless integration

The Economist Intelligence Unit has published a special research report, Towards Seamless Administration (PDF), on the status and challenges of egovernment across South-East Asia, including commments on a number of Australia's nearest neighbours such as New Guinea, East Timor, Singapore and Malaysia.

While Australia and New Zealand are not included in the review, the maturity of egovernment across the region should be a consideration in our planning and thinking.

Just as Australia has provided an example of stable democratic governance and has assisted in the development and security of our neighbours, I believe we have an opportunity and a responsibility to support them in their progress towards more transparent, low-corruption and democratic regimes through the medium of egovernment.

Why Australia should take on a regional egovernment leadership
In my view there are sound economic, social and political reasons for Australia to take on a leadership and supportive role for regional egovernment.

By helping other nations along the road we will facilitate the participation of Australian companies and individuals in the region, both in business and IT spaces, rather than seeing another nation or group, such as the US, Singapore or the European Union take on such a role and diminish Australia's potential economic benefit.

A similar rationale holds for the political front. Australia has a national interest in having strong regional ties and a level of political influence and this could be weakened should other nations become the egovernment leaders, particularly as regional governments could be influenced towards structures and models less attuned to Australian interests. This could also impact on our regional security and agreements.

Finally, and most important to me personally, is the social rationale. Economic development and progress towards an open and fair democracy has been generally demonstrated to be more effective at reducing poverty, increasing freedoms and encouraging more respect for human rights than providing aid or political pressure.

eGovernment as an approach leads to more open and transparent government, lower corruption and more equitable participation, as well as being an underlying driver of economic development by cutting red tape for businesses and individuals.

Therefore by encouraging and supporting egovernment and the enablers for egovernment across the region, Australia will have a positive and non-invasive impact on the wellbeing of our nearest neighbour states.

How should Australia support regional egovernment initiatives?

I've considered three ways in which Australia could make an immediate impact.

1) Model development - showing the way through our local egovernment initiatives

2) Thought leadership - sharing our expertise (technical and business) to assist other nations in developing their egovernment capacity.

3) Regional integration - developing underlying egovernment systems and technologies that can be given or sold to other nations to be deployed to kickstart their egovernment programs. This could include regional epayment, ehealth and online forms capacities (expansions of the efforts by the Reserve Bank, Medicare Australia and AGOSP), or specialised systems developed for customs and border management, led by Customs or Immigration with the involvement of regional stakeholders. Other systems that could be explored for regional applications could include online consultation, collaboration and procurement (such as via GovDex or AusTenders), our online Copyright and Patents systems and many other systems at both state and federal level.

Even with a minimal investment, Australia could enable our neighbours to make significant steps forward in effective governance. 

All it requires is some political and public sector leadership in the area.

I'd be interested in other views on this, or any information on egovernment initiatives already underway with our neighbours.

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