What is Vote Report India?

Vote Report India is a collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections.

Basically, users contribute direct SMS, email, and web reports on violations of the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct (PDF). The platform 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.

How to report incidents?

You can report incidents in four ways –

- By sending a message starting with VoteReport to 5676785

- By sending an email to report@votereport.in

- By filling a form at votereport.in.

- By sending a tweet with the hashtag #votereport

It will help us map your reports if you send them to us in a pre-specified format.

The format you need to follow for submitting your SMS reports is votereport #TOWN or PIN-CODE #CATEGORY DETAILS SOURCE

Example:

votereport #Pune #VIOL Violence in Pune’s Boat Club area. 6 injured. Situation under control. Source: NDTV.

votereport #400019 #BRIB Liquor and clothes distributed in Dharavi slum on election even by X candidate. Eyewitness account.

For Twitter messages, use #votereport instead of votereport.

For e-mail reports, please mention #TOWN or PIN-CODE #CATEGORY in the subject line and DETAILS and SOURCE in the body.

Which categories to use?

There are ten categories displayed on the maps, including All Categories. Below are the descriptions and the short codes for the other nine categories.

- Election Commission Interventions (ECIN): Election Commission interventions in response to violations of the Model Code of Conduct.

- Forged Vote (FORG): Voter being unable to cast her / his vote because a third-party has voted by fraud or impersonation.

- Inflammatory Speech (HATE): Spoken or written speech aimed at inciting communal differences along the lines of religion, caste or creed.

- Other Irregularities (OTHR): All other violations of the Model Code of Conduct not included here.

- Violence (VIOL): Violence related to the elections: voter intimidation, inter-party clashes, mob-violence, booth capture.

- Voter Bribing (BRIB): Voter bringing through the distribution of cash, alcohol, food, gifts etc.

- Voter Name Missing (MISS): Voter’s name missing in spite of her/him having completed due procedures.

- Voting Machine Problems (EVOM): Electronic voting machine irregularities: malfunction, power-outage, button-stuck etc.

- What Went Well (WELL): The electoral process worked as it should.

Which sources to use?

We are hoping to receive reports from a variety of sources, including first hand eyewitness reports and links to media reports.

Also, do not worry about duplicate reports. Our platform can cluster reports and more reports about an event give it more credibility and forces people to take action.