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I starting thinking about using the Web for voting systems in 1994 when Dave Oppenheim and I came up with the concept of a student prize as a means of recognizing talented student members of the ACM and members of ACM student chapters for their achievements in cyberspace. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to play with my ideas for digital ballot boxes. So the first one we did was for the ACM Student Webbie Prize.
The first competition for the Webbie Prize began in June, 1995. The goal was to provide a competition by and for ACM students - only ACM student members could nominate or vote. (note: the backplane CGI code for validation/verification is missing from this demo site). The Webbie Prize concept was approved by the joint Boards and subsequently endorsed by the ACM Executive Committee shortly thereafter. An oversight committee consisting of Hal Berghel, Fred Hoar and Christopher Morgan was established by the joint Boards at the June meeting.
The first Webbie Web site at www.acm.org/webbie/ was activated in the summer of 1996 by Hal Berghel and John Wiggins. In general orientation, the CGI forms-based programming was based around three objectives: (1) interactive nomination with concurrent validation/authentication, (2) dynamic ballot creation, and (3) continuous tallying of votes. The final, operational version of the nominations and voting pages were operational in late Summer, 1995. Nominations were accepted through December, 1995. The voting took place in January of 1996.
In all slightly over 200 ballots were cast for the 14 candidates. The winner of the First Webbie Prize was Ka-Ping Yee of the University of Waterloo for his software tool, Shodouka, which is a Web mediator that renders the kana and kanji on Japanese Web documents into English in real time for any graphical browser. Using Shodouka, one may view Japanese documents without requiring a Japanese browser. Mr. Yee was presented with a check for $1,000 and an expense-paid trip to receive the Webbie Prize at the awards ceremony at the ACM Big Event during ACM Computing Week in Philadelphia in February, 1996.
In late Spring, 1996, the ACM authorized the Second Webbie Prize for 1996. An expanded Webbie Prize committee consisting of the three original members together with Lorrie Faith Cranor and Garry Paxinos was formed shortly thereafter. In June, 1996, it was decided that the Second Webbie Prize would recognize "the best ACM student chapter website." A cash prize of $1,000 was awarded to the St. Cloud State student ACM chapter in January, 1996
I'm excited about the prospects of using the Web for online information exchange within the Government. However, I'm not very optimistic. If you're interested, see my column on Digital Politics.
Enjoy!