Developed using customisation of WordPress
Makes use of WordPress categories to allow for easy browsing of petitions
Theme utilises comments as signatures for petitions
Uses the plugins TDO MiniForms, Comment Timeout, Comment Email Verification and a custom plugin to disable the RSS feed for comments
Clear "badge" system to show live and closed petitions
The live system can be accessed here: http://epetitions.lincoln.gov.uk; the screenshot above is from the test system as, at the time of writing, the live system does not have any petitions
Andrew Beeken 
This is interesting, Andrew – all your own work?
This is really just a cross post from my portfolio – I’ll write up a proper article about how we did this and can discuss it with anyone at UKGC11 who’s interested!
@ Dave
I can’t take credit for development of the plugins we used but the concept and combination of resources was mine.
@Michele
Yes, it’s a bit devoid of petitions at present but when it has something on there, it works a charm!
Pretty impressive! I know many councils (including us) have gone down the off the shelf route in order to meet the government deadline. I’d be interested to see how you’ve used the WordPress functionality once there is a petition or two submitted.