Evaluation of an E-Democracy Platform for European Cities

In this paper the experiences from evaluating an e-democracy platform in two European cities are presented. The e-democracy platform under evaluation consisted of three main applications, mainly tele-voting for realising opinion poll petitions, tele-consultation and e-Forums. In this paper, the trials performed in Barcelona and Brent borough of London are outlined. The specification, development and trials evaluation of the e-democracy platform were carried out within the IST EURO-CITI project. The main purpose of the evaluation within the project was to prove the robustness of the technological platform. However, the evaluation also provided some interesting results with regards to the use of Internet in order to increase citizens’ participation. Although the purpose of the evaluation was not to study the current state and potential of e-democracy, the lessons learnt could nevertheless be useful to researchers and practitioners in the field.