New ‘Uchaguzi’ Platform by Ushahidi to help monitor Kenya’s elections

With countable hours to Kenya’s elections with all eyes globally looking at Kenya, The crowdsourcing technology company Ushahidi has announced a platform to monitor Kenya’s General Election on August 8, 2017, in partnership with InfoNET and The Constitution & Reform Education Consortium (CRECO) under the tagline “Linda Kura Yako,” which translates to “Protect your vote’.

The platform – Uchaguzi (“Election” in Kiswahili)  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.

In a press statement on their website, Ushahidi noted that 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: @Uchaguzi2017Kenyaor directly through Facebook Messenger,
• at https://uchaguzi.or.ke/views/create.

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 located on the 6th Floor of Senteu Plaza, Galana Road / Lenana Road Junction, Nairobi, Kenya.

The short code for Uchaguzi has been advertised on YouTube, Facebook and radio. Ushahidi has also partnered with Facebook to make it possible to report to Uchaguzi via Facebook Messenger. 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.

Ushahidi further states that Uchaguzi will be 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 will also be 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.