EDITORIAL: Why non-party local government polls?
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President Pervez Musharraf has once again okayed the 2005 local government elections on a non-party basis. This means that the on-going battle between the political parties controlling the provinces on the
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If you'd like to vote for a third-party candidate, but don't want to cost the Democrats or Republicans the election, take heart. Sites are cropping up to allow voters in swing states to swap votes with people in non-swing states. By Joanna Glasner.
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Protests over the past two weeks have   added extra spice to local elections in Hungary on Sunday, but   unless the Socialists and their allies lose heavily in big   cities, there is unlikely to be much political fallout.
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The latest opinion polls published in the newspapers today show the Coalition in front on the primary vote, but preferences are running in Labor&#39;s favour.
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By Laura Oppenheimer, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.  Sep. 4--Parks supporters will make the case this fall that drinking clean  water, trekking through the forest and watching animals play are as valuable  as traditional government services competing for money on Portland-area  ballots.
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Your virtual candidate calling Comment Politicians long ago gave up on politics. Instead of articulating great ideas, the choice that faces voters today is between identikit managerial bureaucrats who've never had a job outside politics. Most of their adult lives have been spent in the hermetic world of wonkdom. So it's little wonder, then, that they have trouble distinguishing between fiction and reality.â¦
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In the statistics-driven industry of politics, no population segment is too miniscule
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Local authority leaders are to call for council elections to be held on a different day from the Holyrood vote.
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Â· Dozens turned down by local Catholic primaries Â· Councillor warns of mini apartheid in seaside town
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Exit polls stir a debate over the role of morals - and religious values - in the nation's politics.
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By TOM GALLAGHER  For the record, I will insist that formal discussions about allegations made against me by Mayor Lionel Rivera occur in public and be open to public participation. The issues bear on matters of ethics and values of your elected officials; the people have a right to know.
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Comment is free: Politicians believe volunteering is the cornerstone of a civilised society. But, as Martin Newland found, red tape, fear and political correctness can get in the way of good works.
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Holding a flawed poll could make the situation worse. So could holding no vote at all
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Also: E-voting a 'threat' to UK democracy. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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In Berlin on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled a product package aimed at local and regional e-government initiatives, in the midst of growing government opposition in Europe to proprietary software.Microsoft&#39;s Citizen Service Platform includes applications and templates designed for local and regional governments primarily in Europe and the United States. It is built on products, including SharePoint, Office Live, and Windows Server.While Microsoft has been selling software to the public sector for years, it has recently begun focusing on local governments after discovering that many people interact with their local governments more often than the federal government, said Ralph Young, vice president of Microsoft&#39;s Worldwide Public Sector group.Europe alone has more than 80,000 local and regional governments, Young said.Governments can use the Citizen Service Platform to create portals, manage documents, deploy alert systems in the case of emergencies, and create and manage citizen information databases that can be shared among different agencies.Microsoft is introducing the product as it faces&#160;mounting opposition Europe. Some governments there are migrating to open source products as a way to avoid being locked into a single vendor of proprietary software.Others, such as the Netherlands, are taking a more extreme route. Late last year, the Dutch parliament mandated that government organizations choose open source over proprietary software if a viable product is available. Agencies must also use open standards. The national government must comply with the new rules by May, with local governments following by the end of this year.Young was unfazed by the mandate. &quot;We have many opportunities in the Netherlands to work with local and regional governments,&quot; he said. &quot;We don&#39;t see any federal mandates having real impact locally because of local jurisdictions&#39; ability to make decisions in their best interest in terms of how to better serve citizens.&quot;Microsoft could be counting on local governments having autonomy from such federal mandates, said Mark Anderson, a consultant and founder of the Strategic News Service. &quot;There are a lot of times when a government will posture, and it doesn&#39;t really intend that posture to be carried through the rest of the country,&quot; he said.Still, some European government agencies may be predisposed to choose software other than Microsoft&#39;s, more so since the software giant began pushing its Open XML document format there, Anderson said. Microsoft is in the process of&#160;attempting to have Open XML be accepted as a standard&#160;by the International Organization for Standardization. Open XML competes with the Open Document Format promoted by IBM. Critics of Open XML accused Microsoft of stacking votes in the standardization process, souring some in Europe on Microsoft even further.Microsoft thinks that cost will determine decisions for many local governments. &quot;It&#39;s much less a religious discussion about open source and commercial software as it is about what are the solutions available that governments can see value from,&quot; said Young. &quot;Local governments are empowered to make decisions and if they say &#39;This is the best value for the dollar I spend over the life of a service capability, that will govern my decision-making process.&#39;&quot;
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Comment is free: George Monbiot: The push for participatory democracy has the disturbing whiff of an Astroturf campaign - a fake grassroots movement.
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By The Idaho Statesman, Boise  Feb. 25--Legislators have never trusted mayors or county commissioners to raise a local sales tax for transit.   But, apparently, they'll trust these local officials to OK or veto a nuclear power plant -- unilaterally.