Venezuela: Mapping Irregularities Ahead of the Upcoming Elections

Juliana Rotich
Sep 15, 2010

5D4C3B63-A0A8-4A1A-BDD2-C0BF6AF2E0EB.jpg This is a guest blogpost by Andrés Azpúrua of Voto Joven Caracas, Venezuela: The Reports Map has the intention of collecting all the irregularities that arise in the campaign, with the goal of showing the conditions that will be taken throughout the next elections, irregularities will be received during the elections via the website, twitter, phone calls, and more. The youth organization Voto Joven, that has been working to motivate the participation and transparency of the Elections, put at disposition of all the Venezuelan Community a map on its website to record all the oddities that might be observed before and during the elections. The system uses the Internet, E-mail, and twitter as a way to comunicate the complaints. In it’s last campaign, Voto joven accomplished to increase significantly the numbers of new voters registered during the last registration period; the new voters registered in the few months period was equivalent to those registered in the 3 previous years. The map is powered by Ushahidi, an open-source crowd sourcing crisis information platform. Once the users visit http://mapa.votojoven.com, they will find a map in which you can find the location of the reported irregularities. On the right hand of the map, are the complaints sectioned according to the category of: intimidation or threat, law and electoral statements violation, judicial processes and physical violation, among others. To denounce irregularities through the Website, the user must click NUEVA DENUNCIA up on the right corner of the page, fill all the blanks that appear and classify your complaint, must also specify the location, and if possible, the user can also upload a Picture, Video, or any News that support the complaint. Denounces will also be taken through email, Twitter by hashtags #VJdenuncia and #denuncialo; on the day of the election a free phone number and SMS will be enabled for reports. Voto Joven will dedicate itself, among other activities, to promote the Vote, and to receive complaints from any citizen. All of this in order to monitor the electoral climate before, during and after the process.