E-government application service provider govWorks Inc. Friday partnered with
agreement with Internet election firm
election.com Inc.
The two companies intend to provide online voter registration services
through govWorks’ Web portal.
The deal expands govWorks online aggregation of civic tools, while
election.com increases its reach to a broader Web constituency.
Both firms set their collective sights on providing liberty, justice and
content for online activists that want access to government officials and
the U.S. political process.
Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, govWorks co-founder and chief executive officer said
its mission is to help governments facilitate relationships with citizens
and businesses.
“Civic participation is an important part of this relationship and we are
excited about the addition of the voter registration services of
election.com to our portfolio of products,” Tuzman said.
Along with online voter registration, govWorks offers a variety of
e-government services including payment of tickets, bills, and taxes,
access to online permits and licenses, and listings of contact information
for elected officials.
Joe Mohen, election.com chief executive officer, said it’s committed to
expanding democratic participation.
“We are proud to offer our services through www.govworks.com, so we can
reach out to the growing number of Americans who are choosing to take more
active roles in civic life through online voter registration,” Mohen said.
New York-based election.com provides public and private sector election
services for political jurisdictions, associations, non-profit
organizations, labor unions, credit unions, pension funds and corporations.
Since it started in February 1999, election.com has conducted legally
binding online elections for trade associations and nonprofit organizations
like the Sierra Club, the Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union and the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Being hired by the Arizona Democratic Party to conduct an Internet vote in
its presidential primary was a big step for the Long Island company.
Moen said early speculation was that the first political elections over the
Internet would be for village mayor or garbage collector. In fact,
election.com ended up being part of this year’s presidential election.
More than 86,000 Democrats cast ballots in the Arizona primary, about 80
percent of the vote was tabulated election.com.
To date, no deals have been signed to conduct international elections, or
any other political elections in the U.S., but both firms expect that to
change this election year.
