IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Swindon Borough Council has launched "My Election Swindon" (www.myelection.co.uk/swindon), an online one-stop shop for information about local elections in Swindon.

My Election, developed by e-democracy company Delib , aims to help people through all aspects of voting in the Swindon elections. It is intended to make it easy for people to access all the information they need to engage in their local elections.

The website includes features such as a postcode finder, so local voters can simply enter their postcode to find out which ward they are in and which is their polling station, candidate information and a moderated comment board, so people can add their reasons for and against voting in the local elections. It also integrates Election Alarm Clock, the election reminder service currently being piloted by Lambeth Council in conjunction with the Electoral Commission.

The only drawback to the site is that the main URL (www.myelection.co.uk) takes you to a two-line piece of text promoting the software driving the site – and ought ASAP to be changed for a re-direct to the Swindon pages, www.myelection.co.uk/swindon, putting in a ‘about this site software’ at the bottom of the page to keep the supplier (rightly) visible. In usability terms, this absolutely needs sorting…

Swindon will be running a live results page on the evening of election day, allowing the people of Swindon to see the results online as they are announced.

Alan Winchcombe, of Swindon Borough Council, welcomes the website: "The MyElection website enables people from all over Swindon to find everything they need to know about elections in their area. We wanted to make things convenient for voters by having easily accessible and easy to understand information about all aspects of the local election in one convenient place.

Quelle: Publictechnology, 03.05.2006