Polling in cyberspace shrinks globe.

• Author: MILNE, JOHN
• Position: 3Com's Planet Project online political poll

As the Florida fiasco floundered further into farcical fantasy, the world voted on the Internet in three short days with the results instantly available to all correspondents; a feature somewhat missing from the U.S. presidential election.

The massive, instant electronic exercise, Planet Project, shrank the globe by posting a series of questionnaires and inviting the world to participate over three days in late November.

The idea came from 3Com, the Internet force, in almost everything digital, to use its technology to "...serve as a digital mirror enabling millions of people all over the world to see and then instantly compare themselves to one another in real time..."

The Gore/Bush questionnaire was not on the original slate but, with the U.S. presidential race heading for the toilet, the moment was too special not to sample the views of the world on the consummate fumble in democracy being played out on the global TV networks. 3Com already had, as the saying goes, the technology up and running.

What they discovered in the wink of an eye, compared to the actual election, was that Al Gore would have won by a three-to-one margin if people outside the United States had been allowed to vote.

Planet Project, being Internet-based, also sampled the massive U.S. online population with a not-too-surprising neck-and-neck result. But, the project's questions also revealed that the election results would prompt more Americans to vote the next time and that voters thought the media should be prohibited from reporting the results until after the last polls close.

More than half the respondents outside the U.S. claimed the presidential election "makes me laugh." Many Americans agreed and wondered, in print, why their countrymen seemed genetically incapable of counting ballots. Nearly one fifth of the world claimed "it makes me happy" that America is having a hard time deciding who won. There is some joy, it seems, in watching the worlds greatest super-power take a pratfall on international television news.

Planet Project is no small...