Polls are tricky things under the best of circumstances, and extra caution is necessary when the results of a poll appear to favor the same company that sponsored it.  However, Google seems to have demonstrated that a significant majority of Americans are interested in seeing their state and local governments adopt Google Apps.

Working on behalf of Google, the Clarus Research Group conducted telephone interviews with 1,000 American voters.  It found that 92 percent of those individuals believe "public agencies should make better use of new technologies to cut government spending and improve efficiency."

Then Clarus revealed in an official release, "When told the ‘City of Los Angeles contracted out the hosting and management of its e-mail system to Google, and was able to improve services and save over a million dollars a year as a result,’ 72% of voters said they want their state and local governments to seriously consider doing the same with their e-mail systems."

And due to a lack of vague wording, that second statistic is much harder to dismiss.

The publication of these findings represents a fairly serious push on Google’s part to increase the market share of Google Apps.  Polls aren’t cheap, and asking voters to contact politicians (as a new post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog does) is a significant step.  Microsoft and other competitors may need to watch out.