UK council eyes online voting system

A London council is considering using technology that will allow people to vote from electronic kiosks, mobile phones and even games consoles.

The system runs on server technology developed by online commerce firm Entranet. Camden Council is considering using the online voting system as part of a scheme to make greater use of IT to communicate with residents.

Online voting is slowly taking off. In the US, the Arizona Democratic Party will hold its presidential primary election over the Internet in March. Entranet says the technology is ready in the UK and that it is up to the government to deploy it.

"We could be voting electronically at the next election," said Nick Spooner, Entranet's managing director.

The system could also be used for non-PC online banking and other ecommerce applications. It can be personalised for any language and used with any voting system, claims the manufacturer.

Entranet's system runs on a channel integration server which it developed over three years. The server manages the conversation between the devices and the voting application.

The server allows multiple access devices to access the application and can run on any platform, including AIX, Windows NT and Sun Solaris. It can also support different client technologies such as HTML, Java and WML for wireless application protocol phones.

Dharmesh Mistry, Entranet's director of technology, said: "It allows you to have independence of all application services and prevents vendor lock-in for maximum flexibility."