Why should nationality block anyone from voting for US president, thought Gabor Rosta, back in Hungary but nostalgic for his stint as a campaigner for Al Gore in the tense, 2000 White House battle.

"I want to vote too," said the communications specialist and former political science student.

"Leaders, in particular US presidents, decide on matters that have significance way beyond their own borders," said the 39-year-old Hungarian.

So why not let the world express its opinion about these powerful leaders, he asked.

The result is a website Rosta cooked up to give people all over the world, no matter what their country of affiliation, a say in the upcoming Obama-McCain race.

Rosta's interest in US politics was honed during a stay eight years ago when he worked for three months as a volunteer for Gore in his failed bid against George W. Bush, then again in Hillary Clinton's successful race for senator from New York.

Frustrated that issues of nationality could stand in the way of freedom of expression, Rosta launched his website in May — www.iwanttovotetoo.com. It is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Spanish and of course Hungarian, with more languages expected to come later.

The initial idea was to hold an online US presidential poll simultaneously with the real event on 4 November. Voters around the globe would cast their ballots at the same time as US citizens. Only Rosta's "winner" would be known immediately after the polls close in Hawaii, the state that votes last — before official US results are announced.

But Rosta did not stop there.

Voting elsewhere

After Ireland rejected a European Union treaty on reform — which must be ratified by all 27 bloc members to pass — in a June referendum, Rosta thought the issue should be revisited as it affected more Europeans than just those who voted it down.

His website will now hold its own referendum on the Lisbon treaty on 7 October, a week before European leaders are set to hold a summit to try to overcome the impasse.

And why stop there? The upcoming Romanian and New Zealand parliamentary elections will also be held on the website, in parallel with the official events.

"This service is non-partisan and interest neutral," the site proclaims. "It is led by the sole purpose of creating and maintaining a global opportunity to express democratic opinions."

Participants remain anonymous but must register via email for each vote they take part in.

"The votes will create an open, researchable database, available to all," said Rosta, who has no plans to sell the data but has not ruled out taking in advertising.

"The global electronic votes can be immediately listed and searched according to gender, age, country, party preference, religion or locality," he said. "We can now have data, for example, on how registered French Muslims vote in, say, the question about the EU's future."

Mindful of privacy issues, however, Rosta and his development team won approval from Hungary's parliamentary commissioner in charge of citizen data protection, and have since copyrighted their site.

"The moment a voter casts his ballot on the day of the vote, his or her email address will be erased from the system" so that it cannot be used for marketing purposes, he said.

'Democratic action'

Little surprise is in store for the outcome of the site's US vote, with Democratic candidate Barack Obama a clear favourite of Europeans.

A poll by The Daily Telegraph in London, which surveyed people in Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia in May, showed Obama with 52 percent support ahead of Republican rival John McCain with barely 15 percent.

At the US embassy in Budapest, spokesperson Jan Krc called Rosta's site "a good demonstration of democratic action" and said he expected to follow results.

While the number of registered voters is still limited, it jumped quickly following the Democratic and Republican conventions in late August and early September, leaping from 300 to more than 3343 from 121 countries or territories — the most, 747, from France and even one from the remote Palmyra Atoll, US-administered islets in the northern Pacific.

Rosta's EU poll trails far behind with only 596 registered by 9 September.

"I am not worried," he quipped. "There are still two months until the US elections."

"Every third visitor to the site actually registers immediately and I am positive most of the unregistered ones will come back for registrations when the deadline is close."

AFP