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This work of research and development seeks to present a proposal of digital mediation for direct public participation during electoral periods. The proposal includes a conceptual and functional model and the corresponding proof of concept –a web application named iLeger. In summary, this application supports collaborative interactions such as questions, answers, suggestions, ratings, comments and live debates, and was specifically designed to gather, in a single neutral deliberative and regulated space, the main stakeholders in an electoral campaign, fostering multidirectional communication (synchronous and asynchronous) and sharing between them. This chapter also includes the results obtained from the use of the iLeger platform in the electoral campaign for the Portuguese Parliamentary and Local Elections held in 2009, the 2010 election of the Head of the Portuguese Medical Association and the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections held in 2011 in Portugal. The developing effort was conducted taking into account an Agile strategy which is briefly reported in the development process.

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This paper presents a proposal of digital mediation for direct public participation during electoral periods. The proposal is based on a conceptual model and proof of concept -a Web application. It is intended to narrow the communication gap between citizens and candidates, make campaigns more open and encourage citizens to become involved and participate in electoral debates. This paper also includes results from five experiments in electoral campaigns held in Portugal between 2009 and 2011. Among the main results, it should be highlighted the role of the Media as a driving force for initiatives of public participation during electoral periods, the importance of advertisement and awareness to events involving public participation, and the influence of events of short duration and live coverage in the number of participants and in the stakeholders active participation. Although the strong potential of e-participation tools to reverse citizen distancing from electoral debates is recognized, it is nevertheless argued that the main focus should be on participation and the people and not so much on technology.

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