Elections Go! Showcase and Political Participation Roundtable

Date: 20 March 2019
Venue: NUI 49 Merrion Square, Dublin

Background: 

Elections GO! (EGO) is a project funded by the European Commission which developed and piloted a digital platform with voter facilitation and mobilisation functions. The platform includes tools which promote voter registration, provide voter information and it delivers mobilisation functions through the use of pop-up polls, a news aggregator and a micro-blogging news feature.
The application is built using a content management system and could be used by political parties, state agencies, campaign groups or NGOs working in a political space.
The project team of University College Cork, Modern Democracy and the University of Helsinki worked with a diverse stakeholder network to deliver a multi-functional portal which can be adapted to different political and electoral environments across the EU. The Elections Go! portal will be showcased at an event on Wednesday 20 March 2019 and this will be followed by a roundtable discussion on the political participation of young people in politics.

Schedule

10.30 Registration.Tea/coffee on arrival
10.45 Opening remarks and project overview. Dr Theresa Reidy (UCC)
11.00 Presentation of Elections Go! portal and preliminary findings from pilot. Ms Stella Coyle (Modern Democracy)
11.30 Presentation of Elections Go! communication plan and preliminary findings from pilot. Dr Johanna Peltoniemi (University of Helsinki)
12.00 Coffee break
12.15 Roundtable discussion of Elections Go! and the political participation of young people
1.15 Lunch for participants

All welcome, please email Theresa Reidy on t.reidy@ucc.ie to confirm attendance.

This project was funded by the European Union’s [Justice Programme (2014-2020) / [Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020)].
Grant number: 769067
The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the Elections Go! project and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission.

Elections Go! Scientific Workshop

Elections Go! Scientific Workshop

11 December 2017

NUI 49 Merrion Square, Dublin

9.30 Registration

9.45 – 11.15 Session One: Mobilisation and Participation

Tea/coffee on arrival

9.45 Opening remarks and project overview

Chair: Hanna Wass (University of Helsinki)

Political Participation: Old and New Challenges

Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca (University of Gothenburg)

Online political participation: measures to assess young people’s engagement

Gabriella Melis (University College London)

Negative campaigning and its consequences

Annemarie Walter (University of Nottingham)

11.15-11.45 Coffee

11.45 – 1.30 Session Two: Deliberation

Chair: Stella Coyle

Success and Failure in Deliberative Innovations

Matt Ryan

Deliberation through Contestation? Measuring Arguments in the Facebook Comment Fields of

Three Brexit Campaigns

Michael Bossetta (University of Copenhagen)

The Irish journey in deliberative democracy from We the Citizens to the Constitutional Convention?

Jane Suiter (Dublin City University)

1.30-2.30 Lunch

2.30-4.00 Session Three: Thinking and Technology

Chair: Theresa Reidy (University College Cork)

Crowdsourcing in Policymaking: Motivations, Value, and Challenges

Tanja Aitamurto (Stanford University)

Working Towards Empathy-enabling Digital Environments

Mari Falcon (University of Helsinki)

End of workshop

Elections Go! Stakeholder Engagement

Elections Go!

Stakeholder Engagement

12 December 2017

NUI 49 Merrion Square, Dublin

9.45 Tea/coffee on arrival

Registration

10.00-12.00 Election Administrators Roundtable Discussion

Facilitator:

Introduction: EGO! Overview and co-creation

Roundtable Participants

Enda Falvey, Department of Housing, Ireland

Michael O'Connor, Department of Housing, Ireland

Heini Huotarinen, Ministry of Justice, Finland

John Tomlinson, Sheffield City Council, UK

Natasha Sheehan, Dublin City Council, Ireland

Discussion questions

1. What technologies are currently used in your organisations to promote voter registration and citizen engagement with politics?

2. Are there areas where technological solutions could be adopted to enhance the work of your organisations?

3. In designing a facilitation and mobilisation platform, what types of data analytics from the site would election administrators be interested in having included?

4. How would you judge success in a platform of this kind?

5. How do you engage citizens with online tools in non-election years.

6. Are there any examples of projects that have/have not worked in this space and key learnings that could be shared from these?

Plans for further stakeholder engagement and consultation

12.00 – 14.00 Lunch available for all participants on site

13.45 Tea/coffee on arrival

Registration

14.00 – 16.00 Youth Political Participation

Facilitator:

Introduction: EGO! Overview and co-creation

Kamilla Sultanova, Global Dignity

Opening remarks

Roundtable Participants

Philip Murphy, University College Cork

Amy Kelly, Union of Students of Ireland

Piarais McCafferty, Northern Ireland Youth Parliament

Discussion questions

1. Where do young people go to get political information?

2. What types of political information do they want to receive?

3. What might encourage young people to use a facilitation and mobilisation tool?

Plans for further stakeholder engagement and consultation

This project has received funding from the European Commission Diretorate-General Justice and Consumers under the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020).

Grant number: 769067