16 November 2011

Local Government Helps Public Cast a Vote for General Election

Local Government Online Limited (LGOL) has just launched their website www.vote.co.nz.

The site is based on their highly successful www.elections2010.co.nz website, which acts as an information portal for voters, so that they can easily make sense of who they can vote for.

Some key elements available on www.vote.co.nz are; searching for who you can vote for by your address and by A-Z candidates or parties, accompanied by details of what each party and candidates main issues are. The site provides details on the referendum regarding the future voting mechanism, and on the actual election day and days following, it displays the results as they come in.

A unique feature of the website is the Q&A section, where users are given the opportunity to ask candidates specific questions, while politicians can log in and answer these online.

Cassandra Crowley, CEO of LGOL, says party policies and the number of different candidates with different issues can be daunting for voters.

“We believe that helping people to understand what and whom they can vote for, might help raise the real participation rates. People do want to vote but they want to know that they are not just mindless in choosing a colour or known name. Sometimes they just need help to understand what it actually is that they are voting for, and to make them feel more comfortable about the voting process”.

The success of last year's elections2010 site, with almost 1-million page views over two days following the close of voting, seems to have proven her right. The website is built and hosted by SilverStripe Ltd and based on the SilverStripe open-source CMS.

Given the success of the 2010 Local Elections site, SilverStripe’s CEO Sam Minnée is excited about this opportunity to help New Zealand voters, and is aware that the expected number of users coming to the site at the same time is a big challenge for the website.

“We did everything we could to ensure that the site is running smoothly throughout the whole election, no matter what the amount of traffic is”.

With less than two weeks to go before the General Election, visiting www.vote.co.nz will be essential to help the country decide ‘who will reside in the Hive’.

ENDS

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