Who is behind the site?
First of all, we’d like to thank IfTheWorldCouldVote.com – which covered only the United States election, but provided the idea for a more encompassing initiative. WorldVoting.net is this new initiative from VoteWorldGovernment.org. Vote World Government is conducting a global referendum on the question “Do you support the establishment of a directly elected, representative and democratic world government?”. World Voting takes a different aspect of democratic world government – basically holding faux elections for those nations around the world who elect their “Head of State” via democratic election.

Why are you doing this?
The main reason is to raise political consciousness from the national to the planetary level, to convey a sense of our species’ increasing interdependence. Our political philosophy is that every society benefits from representative democracy, the more inclusive the better, and that currently, this is almost entirely absent at the global level. It seems peculiar to us that governance at the municipal, state (province) and nation-state levels has been democratised in much of the world, but the tier where the stakes are arguably the highest, the supranational tier, is managed by a dysfunctional and deeply undemocratic international system, prone to regular and sometimes catastrophic failure.

WorldVoting.net is an important website in that it is the first time, to our knowledge, that anything on this scale has been attempted. Certainly polls about heads of state or political parties have been held online before, but there has never been an effort to consolidate this activity to a single and uniform ongoing process; to track it, measure it and put each country’s results in a global context. Of course there is absolutely nothing legally binding about these polls, but the results will certainly be interesting. We will track how candidates are favored globally via a world map, as well as by a tabular listing by nation. These results, when sufficient votes are collected to make the results statistically significant, will be found from a tab on the top menu labeled “Results”.

How many times can I vote?
Each computer can only vote once. Yes, you can clear your cookies and vote again, but we will be looking for multiple votes, and repeat votes will be deleted. (UPDATE: For APRIL/MAY 2009 – this restriction has been lifted in order to allow school children in India, and elsewhere, to vote at their school’s computer/Internet connection).

Where are the other candidates?
We have set up WorldVoting.net to accept either 2 or 3 candidates (in rare exceptions – 4 or 5), based upon our analysis of the particular national election. While this seems unnecessarily restrictive, it has the benefit of simplicity. Most countries have no more than 2 or 3 major power blocks with a realistic chance of attaining power, and we concluded it made the most sense to limit voting to just those major groups.

Do you really think the world should be able to vote?
As we stated above, WorldVoting.net is an attempt to get the world’s opinion about the individuals or parties running for (or currently in) national office. The world we live in has become dramatically interdependent in a very short time. The choices of one nation about war, the environment and questions of justice now affect all others. In the absence of a genuine global parliament, it seems eminently reasonable to at least exercise an opinion about those in positions of power. Of course, democracy is based on the wishes of the governed and we are therefore simultaneously hosting the worlds first referendum on global governance at our main website, VoteWorldGovernment.org.

Who’s paying for all this?
As mentioned earlier, WorldVoting.net is being underwritten by VoteWorldGovernment.org. We will soon have a Paypal Donation Button on the site which will allow anybody who has a Paypal account to donate a small amount.

How can I help?
You can help by telling your friends and family about the site, blog about it, Digg it, Stumble it, share it on Facebook, join our newsletter group at Google Groups, etc. We will be proposing all sorts of ways to share this site.

Can we get someone for an interview?
Sure. Send us a request through contact@WorldVoting.net.

Are you not on the list at the Blogs & Media tab?
If you have promoted WorldVoting in any way, please send an email to contact@WorldVoting.net with a link to your coverage.