Seattle firm maps tricky election in Lebanon

A Seattle software company has taken a dip in the volatile caldron of Lebanese politics, building a database tool to help election observers monitor today's crucial parliamentary elections in that deeply divided nation.

And if there's a Wolf Blitzer wannabe among Beirut's broadcasters, he may use the data to give viewers a picture of how the vote is going — "à la CNN with McCain and Obama," said Integral GIS President Patrick Moore.

Moore and two staffers spent three months in Beirut writing software and gathering demographic data on each kadaa (district) and muhafazah (province) in Lebanon — no small task in a country with 18 recognized sectarian groups or "confessions" but little consensus on their numbers.

That data will be combined with real-time information from poll watchers, coming in via text messages.

The system could alert authorities and observers to any possible fraud in the closely contested election that pits a coalition supported by the U.S. and European Union against another that revolves around the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria.

"We know approximately how many voters within each confession are within each delineated area, so if twice as many votes come in, that will raise a red flag," Moore said.

Though the system won't have the kind of precinct-level, minute-by-minute data shown on American TV on election day, it will have exit-poll information and a count of voters produced by "an army of observers" from Lebanese groups and outside organizations such as the European Commission and the Arab League, Moore said.

He said at least one Lebanese broadcaster plans to use a Microsoft Surface computer display to showcase the information.

Unlike the U.S., where demographic and voting data is available with the click of a mouse, Lebanon is something of a black hole for such statistics.

A national census has not been conducted since 1932, for fear of disrupting what one U.S. report called "the precarious and delicate sectarian arrangement in the body politic."

So Moore said his team was left to create a picture of Lebanon's voters from databases provided by the various political parties. "Hopefully the information we're tapping into is trustworthy — we think it is," he said.

Moore and two others went to Beirut on March 1, hired by Beirut software firm Arabia GIS on behalf of Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform, a coalition of Lebanese groups committed to open and democratic elections.

"We really had to hit the ground running — 15-hour days, six days a week. And Sundays you are recovering and figuring out what software you're going to develop Monday," he said.

David Carroll, director of the Democracy Program of the Atlanta-based Carter Center, said in an interview from Beirut that the Lebanese election is rife with possibilities for electoral abuse, ranging from "the corrupting influence of money" to the lack of standardized ballots — each party prints its own.

Carroll said Friday that he's not aware of the database set up by Integral GIS. He said it's more likely to be used by local Lebanese poll-watching groups, which will have thousands of observers, as opposed to the Carter Center, which has just a few in each of the 25 districts.

The dearth of good background data in Lebanon contrasts with Integral's usual work for U.S. business clients, such as Starbucks.

For the coffee merchant, Integral built a geographic-information system (GIS) to pinpoint opportunities for potential stores, combining vast amounts of U.S. demographic and economic data with specific criteria "that Starbucks holds near and dear."

The result: "Out pops a map — thou shalt look at locations here," said Moore. The Lebanon contract is worth "a couple hundred thousand for us," and could help the eight-person firm do further election business around the world, he said.

"I'm hoping that this is just the start of something bigger."

Green shoots among the red herrings?

For the first time in more than a year, plans for an initial public-stock offering have been filed by a serious local technology company.

True, the filing by Seattle biotech firm Omeros Corp. is simply an update of papers first filed in January 2008 and revised that May — but the fresh documents suggest the company hopes to move forward soon with an IPO.

Remember those?

The Omeros filing (known as a "red herring" because the paper version traditionally has investor warnings in that color) — indicates the company could use a dose of capital.

It has spent about $105 million since in 1994 and is burns more than $5 million a quarter, with $16.8 million left on March 31.

Omeros doesn't expect to seek regulatory approval for its first product, now in a Phase 3 clinical trial, until mid-2010.

David Miller, CEO of Biotech Stock Research in Seattle, says that after a long, truly miserable stretch for biotech stocks, "there is no doubt the sector is coming back, finally."

But Miller says his firm doesn't look at biotech IPOs — rather than rush in at the beginning, he prefers to wait for the stocks to lose half their value or fall below $3.

Comments? Send them to Rami Grunbaum: rgrunbaum@-

seattletimes.com or 206-464-8541