evoice: rationale

Over recent decades interest in politics in the North Sea Region has dwindled to such an extent that the legitimacy of our elected leaders is being brought into question. Figures show that:

• fewer people are using their right to vote;
• membership of political parties has plummeted, and
• the choice of political representatives is narrowing as fewer people put themselves forward for election.

If these trends continue, the proper functioning of the democratic system could be endangered.

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Our ancestors fought for their rights to vote (poster by Albert Hahn sr., 1911, The Netherlands: petition for universal suffrage). Universal suffrage for men and women has not been introduced in The Netherlands until 1917, less than a hundred years ago.

evoice: m-tool library

To support local and regional authorities and (groups of) citizens to identify appropriate ways of online engagement in eDemocracy processes, the evoice project presents the m-tool library.

An assortment of m-tools are presented in short, structured fact sheets which consists of:

• general description
• scope of functionalities
• target groups
• advantages and disadvantages
• practical applications
• applications used in evoice pilots
• contact persons
• examples and additional information

At the moment 6 M-tool factsheets with short and structured user information are available for:

• games
• discussion forums
• quick polls
• online surveys
• webcasting
• e-panels

For the m-tools: webchats, weblogs, newsletters and podcasts a more comprehensive description - including, e.g., criteria to choose the software or a web-hosting service - is made available in a downloadable pdf document.