Web site offers a chance to vote again

By Daniel Sieberg
CNN.com Technology Editor

(CNN) -- Frustrated with the outcome -- or lack thereof -- in the U.S. presidential election? A new Web site created by a Canadian company is offering the chance to cast a virtual ballot and register opinions online.

Far from creating a joke like several satirical sites that have sprung up, the people behind revoteonline.com say they want to position themselves as a legitimate source of information for media and citizens and are prepared to keep operating for the next four years by posing various questions to its users.

One of the site's architects is Dan Hunter, CEO of emailthatpays.com, a marketing company based in Vancouver, British Columbia. It specializes in commercial e-mail advertising and surveys.

QUICKVOTE If you revoted, would you alter your original choice? Yes No View Results     MESSAGE BOARD Election 2000

"We want to be a serious polling site for the media," said Hunter. "You can poke holes in our statistics, but you can poke holes in any statistics."

Hunter said he conceived of the idea while watching the late-night election coverage on November 7. He said he was surprised to find that the revoteonline.com domain name was available for registration -- a moniker he chose after seeing a placard waved on CNN. Programmers had the site up and running within 72 hours.

A user of revoteonline.com must provide his or her name, state, e-mail address and age in order for a vote to register. That being the case, Hunter admitted that many people might not be willing to participate.

Hunter said the information is necessary to ensure that each person casts only one vote. Despite the nature of his company, he promised that the personal details will not be used for marketing purposes or resold to other businesses. Hunter estimated that 10 percent of the people who visit the site are willing to vote.

Dan Hunter, CEO of a marketing company in Vancouver, has serious aspirations for his new Web site revoteonline.com

About 3,000 people had voted as of Tuesday afternoon, said Hunter, with traffic increasing on a daily basis. Anyone in the world is allowed to vote, but only votes sent from the U.S. are added to the updated statistics. Votes from outside the country will be tallied at a later time.

The site does provide some levity by offering an optional vote on how to break a presidential deadlock. The choices are: best three out of five Rock-Paper-Scissors; a scaled-down version of "Survivor"; an arm wrestle; and one hand of five card stud. The last choice is actually legalized in New Mexico.

Because of the higher volume of Web traffic, Hunter said his technical staff is upgrading the capacity of the servers. A minor glitch on Tuesday afternoon resulted in some users receiving an error message when they tried to submit their votes, but Hunter said the problem has since been resolved.

"As with any Internet company, we're discovering the chinks in the armor."

Although Hunter's company is Canadian, he recognizes that there is global interest in the ongoing political and legal struggle for the American presidency. But he points to Canada's recent election as a model of efficiency.

"We had an election here yesterday," Hunter said. "It wasn't too complicated. We had a ballot with a name and a circle beside it. The votes were counted at the polling station and we knew the result within hours."

Some Internet analysts have said that online voting could be the way of the future, although potential problems like hacking and identity theft must still be addressed.

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revoteonline.com
emailthatpays.com

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