If Britain’s electoral candidates require any further reason to justify Crowdsourcing as a communication tool with voters, Microsoft’s latest play-thing could be of some considerable interest to them.

Microsoft’s ‘TownHall’ software aims to replicate the experience of a town hall meeting place inside an online arena. Participants within the active online forum can ask questions, vote on polls, respond to questions and take part in a variety of themed discussions.

The software forms part of a package of cloud-based services called ‘Campaign Ready.’ The idea behind Campaign Ready is to provide election candidates with a place to build their own website where they can generate, discuss, argue and debate relevant details surrounding their campaign.

The Guardian saysTownHall will feature a points-based system where users can  set up a profile and gain kudos for their contributions by earning badges for asking and answering questions, voting in polls, etc. And according to Mashable, TownHall will also be accessible via Facebook Connect.

Microsoft’s brand spanking new product has arrived as a result of the increase and importance of social media in daily society (the likes of Facebook and Twitter) and the necessity for politicians to use these tools to engage with their prospective voters- as championed by Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Strictly speaking, this is less to do with Crowdsourcing (despite Microsoft’s careful marketing label of the ‘C’ word) and far more to do with interaction in social media. TownHall will not necessarily lead to the implementation of ideas- it’s a forum to express and discuss them.

The example set by the Irish government through the ‘Your Country, Your Call’ campaign is a contemporary example of Crowdsourcing actually being used as a model of government. Public proposals are actively sought after, and genuine financial support is provided for projects that are accepted.

Nevertheless, TownHall could prove to be the first online model to bridge the gap between the election candidates and the electorate. And If British politicians remain sceptical of its future use, perhaps they should ask themselves a different question- what do they stand to lose by trying it?

If the ‘TownHall’ was left full of empty, vacant debates that provided little or no feedback from the candidates, then it would ultimately prove a pointless venture. Many politicians will eventually discover this for themselves during their debut forages into the world of Twitter in the current General Election campaign.

But the more interaction that takes place in forums like TownHall, the more inclined the crowds will be to take part. Word of mouth will encourage others to take a look, and soon a thriving hub of would-be-voters will begin to emerge, and the politicians might discover what the people want them to do in order to win their vote.

It’s not particularly scientific – but then when has politics ever made any sense?!

(There is currently a demo version of TownHall available to use in trial mode. To access the demo, users can log in with the username: demouser and the password: demospassword).