Ushahidi

Ushahidi in Election Law

'Witness' in Swahili. This concept was created in the aftermath of the 2007 Kenya presidential elections. It is a web based platform to collect eyewitness reports of incidents of violence, fraud and other irregularities, offering real-time feedback to interested stakeholders. This crowdsourcing method enables users to post data (not limited to election day observation) on an interactive map and analyse it quickly, producing trends and projections. In countries where traditional media is controlled by the state, Ushahidi can offer important alternative avenues to report uncensored information directly to the public. The main dangers concern the reliability of the information that is sent and displayed in real time. If not properly filtered and verified, it risks becoming a further destabilising factor in otherwise already volatile contexts.

Resources

See Also

• Election Law
• Electoral Laws
• Electoral Legislation