Last year's general election was won by 1,500 votes and in its analysis i-Tech came to the conclusion that internet had, for the first time in the history of Maltese politics and internet, played a role in shaping that result. Fifteen months later, we have just had the European Parliament elections. Did the internet play a role this time round?
Though the EP elections are of a different nature than general elections, with a lower turnout and perhaps more freedom of choice in terms of party allegiance, internet was used as a communication tool by parties and candidates, but not on the scale of last year's election. Yet the role of the media seems undisputed.
"Media strategies have greater significance in EP elections as candidates have to connect to a nation-wide constituency," Carmen Sammut, a lecturer in media and international politics at the University of Malta explained to i-Tech: "Traditional door-stepping remains important in the small scale scenario of the Maltese islands but in EP elections it is practically impossible for all the candidates to establish and maintain interpersonal contact with all voters. The internet became an important channel that extended the reach of the key players beyond the traditional media."
Sergio Galea Vincenti, an IT consultant, agrees that technology once again played an increasingly greater role in the EP elections.
"First and foremost, there are more people who are connected online from 2004, and the usage patterns are more refined - particularly through a greater reliance on social networking sites, the increased reliance on e-mail and the fact that, today, Maltese surfers can draw from an increased number of constantly updated local news and blogging sites."
Blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and Hi5 did play a role but on a smaller scale compared to last year. It seems that the Labour Party recognised the grave mistake it made in last year's general election by shunning away from these new online avenues while at the same time the Nationalist Party went full blast, with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi engaging citizens in online chats, his wife blogging regularly during the campaign, and Facebook swamped with pro-PN pages and groups.
This year, the reverse happened. Under Joseph Muscat's leadership, who had personally made extensive use of internet, his party leadership campaign, the presence of the PL on Facebook was strongly felt, perhaps accentuated by the PN's shy presence.
Dr Sammut thinks the element of engagement on internet is of paramount importance.
"People nibble information from various sources and many resort to the internet not merely to consume information but also possibly to become engaged with the political process. Yet, in Malta we haven't fully acknowledged internet's potential to empower people, and hence its ability to promote transformative action.
"A glance at some of the official websites of the parties and candidates shows that in Malta they have not adequately employed the interactive potential of the internet. Most of the websites presented online versions of content disseminated via the old media. With some exceptions, the communication stream was unidirectional; from the politician to his/her audience. Some used social network facilities, e-mails and YouTube. Others wrote blogs. One even used his website to sell campaign merchandise. Overall, there was little interactivity and audience participation was limited to appeals that encouraged people to get involved and the possibility for audiences to ask questions to the candidate. As yet, in none of the websites does the reader emerge as a sovereign actor to the levels witnessed in the US presidential campaign."
Mr Galea Vincenti notes that internet played some form of role thanks to the misuse of e-mail which resulted in confidential e-mails being transmitted by the sender to the most inopportune of recipients.
"This, in itself, is a factor which demonstrates how there still needs much to be done in having people occupying sensitive positions to actually understand and use even the most simple - albeit powerful - applications."
Despite all this hive of activity online, i-Tech could not but notice the continuous stream of printed matter being delivered to letterboxes almost every day. In localities where local elections were being held, the wave was even greater.
Online overage of the elections was substantial, with timesofmalta.com providing a special feature complete with candidate's profiles, their blogs, video interviews and news from the campaign. Then it provided breaking news from the counting hall, complete with pictures and video clips. Other local news websites also provided special election coverage.
One website which provided many resources in a bid to encourage citizens to vote was the European Parliament's own online presence. Maybe the low turnout did not do justice to this online effort.
Internet or no internet, the tedious and lengthy counting process at Naxxar dragged on for three days in the same old manual fashion. This time round the PN did not provide personal digital assistants to its counting agents to speed up the collection of samples of voting patterns. Yet after just 90 minutes into the sorting of votes, we had a clear indication of the final result.
"I wonder when we shall realise that a lot of the work and resources utilised to carry out and monitor the counting process can easily be done away with by using high-speed scanners with simple form-capture software capabilities," said Mr Galea Vincenti. "We could have results out in just two or three hours and the validation can be left to machines. Of course, no one here in Malta likes to be left out and no one trusts anybody else so that real solution shall not happen any time soon!"
Indeed, an electronic voting system or vote counting system is unheard of in Malta, though experiments abroad have been conducted with interesting results, not least in several EU countries. However the merits of electronic systems in elections are still a hot topic and no system has been granted international recognition as the definite choice.
Issues of electronic fraud have still not been hammered out and the problem with punch card in the 2000 US presidential election is still fresh in many minds.