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See some examples of Election Monitoring

 

TIpsChallenges

Early Deployment: Deploy the platform early

so that you and the population can get

comfortable with it.

Mapping Accuracy: Difficulty in obtaining

accurate geo-data.

Communications & Messaging: Have a well planned

communications and messaging

campaign in order to raise awareness.

Data Poisoning: purposeful sending of false

or misleading information.

Multi-Source Reporting: Mix election monitoring

sources with the greater

population's reports.

Verification: How do you deal with it in near

real-time? It’s critical to have the necessary

staff for data management and verification.

Community Partnerships: Try to create

partnerships between other organizations so

that you can cast a wide net for both

awareness and messaging of what the results

really mean.

Closing The Feedback Loop: It's important

to not only receive information but also share

information. For example: Make sure you set

up and configure SMS or email alerts.

 

Multifaceted Promotional Strategy: A

promotional strategy that includes offline,

online and mobile. Don’t lose sight of the

offline part of your plan!

 

Getting Started

If you are interested in using Ushahidi for election monitoring, perhaps the most important step you can take is to plan early because disseminating information on your initiative across an entire country will take time. Ideally, start at least 6 months out and start using the platform for something other than election monitoring, such as traffic, crime or corruption monitoring. The key is to have users familiar with the platform so they can see the added value well before the elections take place.  This will help you expand buy-in in the lead up to the elections.  The next decision you’ll need to make is whether you want your project to be open so that anyone can report on election irregularities or whether you will mobilize trusted networks of monitors to do the reporting. You can certainly do both, which we recommend if time and resources allow. The advantage of doing both is that this increases the possibility of triangulating and validating  incoming reports. Before turning to sourcing and handling incoming data, you’ll need to select the categories you want to use for the monitoring. Here are some examples: fraud, vote tampering, illegal campaigning, removal of observers.

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