Voting by Mobile Devices Could Be Available in United States by 2012, VeriSign Says

LAS VEGAS, NV, April 1, 2009 — Mobile devices could be used for voting purposes in the United States by 2012, according to market predictions made by the Messaging and Mobile Media division of VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world.

Among its five top predictions, VeriSign expects:

-- Mobile government will become more popular as citizens seek real-time
access to their elected officials.
-- More financial institutions will offer mobile banking and payments as
a value-added service to customers.
-- Donations using mobile devices will grow in popularity, eventually
overtaking online donations.

"Barack Obama's presidential campaign last year demonstrated the popularity and potential for the type of personalized information and services people have come to value and expect these days," said Charles Landry, vice president and general manager, products and innovation, for VeriSign's Messaging and Mobile Media division. "With other mobile applications such as banking and donations picking up steam, SMS is becoming the pervasive communications medium of the 21st century, which necessitates all the various players in the channel to work together to deliver reliability and security to the network that delivers these applications."

VeriSign's market predictions include:

1. 10 percent of the population will interact with the government using mobile devices by 2012

The era of mobile government has arrived in the United States. Mobile devices provide an important communication channel between government and its citizens. We will see mobile voting trials emerging on the local level, as demonstrated in the United Kingdom, giving way to widespread use of the mobile channel as one of several unique voting methods to help increase voter turnout by 2016. By the end of President Obama's first term in 2012, use of SMS to exchange information and opinions, as well as promote accountability and transparency, will become mainstream, with at least 10 percent of the U.S. population using their mobile device to interact with government. Applications can include status information that can be pushed by the government or pulled by end-users, such as tax filings and refunds, driving tickets, library books, driver's license and passports.