The results of the Tasmanian election were foreshadowed by the online behaviour of constituents, according to Internet traffic monitoring company, Hitwise.

The downstream traffic from the Tasmanian Electoral Office Web site, which rose 3,000 rankings in the week before the election, showed many more Tasmanians were departing the site for the Australian Labor Party site and that of Greens leader, Bob Brown, according to Hitwise. The Web site for the Liberal Party, which won just six seats in the election, failed to feature in the top 20 downstream sites.

-As Internet usage is often a mirror of offline interests and activities, monitoring traffic to political party Web sites can be a useful guide to predicting election outcomes," Tessa Court, senior vice president global sales and marketing for Hitwise told ZDNet Australia. -However, since the online population in a given market is not an exact sample of the voting public, I believe that Hitwise can be used as part of the polling process, but at this point should not replace other forms of polling."

Hitwise is targeting political parties with this latest information on trends, and claims to have over 30 government clients, with numbers growing each month. Court also claims this is an indication of how successful online voting would be if it was introduced.

-Based on Hitwise data, which reflects the enthusiasm that Australians and New Zealanders have for using the Internet to participate in political life, I believe that online voting would be embraced by a large percentage of the voting public in these markets," she said.

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