Daily Archives: April 8, 2009

Gaurav mailed me about his latest initiative Vote Report, and I think if a critical mass of people start using it, it can become a source of user initiated reporting about the Indian elections. As their website says:

Vote Report India will partner with citizens’ networks, human rights organizations, and journalists to contribute direct SMS, email and web reports on violations of the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct (PDF). It will then aggregate these direct reports with news reports, blog posts, photos, videos and tweets related to the elections from all relevant sources, in one place, on an interactive map. The interactive map will allow tracking the irregularities in the campaigns leading up to the elections, the voting experience on the day of the elections, and the results themselves.

At one level, Vote Report India will serve as a critical initiative aimed at nurturing transparency and accountability in the Indian election process. At another level, the platform will provide the most complete picture of public opinion in India during the elections.

Here’s what Gaurav wrote to me:

I have probably told you about Vote Report India, a project I have been working on. It’s a collaborative citizen-powered election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha elections.

We launched Vote Report India today. Here is the “official” post and here are riffs by Erik and myself. Do spend some time at our website and project wiki to get a sense of what we are doing. I’ll be delighted if you can get involved in the project in any way.

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• Vote Report India Launches (ushahidi.com)