The crowdsourcing technology company Ushahidi has partnered with Facebook, InfoNET and The Constitution & Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) to monitor Kenya’s General Election on August 8, 2017.
Using its Uchaguzi platform, Ushahidi will monitor incidences of electoral offences, violence, peace activities and to inform Kenyans on how their counties and constituencies voted during the August 8th General Elections.
The Constitution & Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) is providing 700 monitors located at various polling stations around the country as well as administrative support. InfoNET, a technology partner, is offering the Action Response Team, Analysis and Partnership Platforms.
The hope is that the Kenyan Elections will be peaceful, but if there is any irregularities the 700+ Uchaguzi observers, general public and trained volunteers will be able to report electoral incidences to the Uchaguzi Short Code (20166), Twitter: @uchaguzi, Facebook: @Uchaguzi2017Kenya or directly through Facebook Messenger, and at https://uchaguzi.or.ke/
Uchaguzi will continue to monitor activities throughout the campaign period to the actual election day. Between August 5-9 Uchaguzi will operate a 24-hour Situation Room at the iHub. The project has also engaged the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Police, Judiciary, Human Rights Groups, Civil Society and Media through online conversations and live chat where the institutions provide feedback to conversations and engage citizens in real time.
Uchaguzi is the most collaborative deployment of the Ushahidi platform to date, having worked with key actors in the humanitarian sector, human rights activists, private sector, government and the technology community in Kenya.
This is the fourth time that the platform will be used to promote citizen participation in election monitoring initiatives in Kenya. The first instance of the crowdsourcing platform Ushahidi was created in the midst of the 2008 post election violence as a tool to map violence and respond to the crisis. The platform was also used during the August 2010 constitutional referendum vote and the 2013 Kenya General Election. The platform was also used to monitor US elections last year.
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Ushahidi was recently on the wrong side of history when one of its employees resigned and accused its CEO sexually harassing her.
