Indian daily Mid Day did a nice story on Vote Report India today, and even put up my Introduction to Vote Report India video on their website.
Here is the full text of the story –
Don’t just be a voter Now, You Can Also Monitor the Poll Process.
Votereport.in, a first-of-its-kind citizenpowered platform, allows you to highlight irregularities via SMS, email, or even a Tweet
Bhairavi Jhaveri bhairavi.jhaveri@mid-day.comWhat could the 26/11 terror attacks, a Kenyan post-election violence blog and one more avid blogger possibly have in common? The mix, as this correspondent discovered, is more potent than you might imagine at first.
Gaurav Mishra (29) was only a Yahoo! Fellow in International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet in Washington until the Mumbai terror attacks. But the tragedy got him toying with the idea of forming a network for the Indian elections along the lines of the Kenyan post-election violence blogger network, Ushahidi.
The aim was to increase transparency and accountability, instill a participatory mindset among citizens and provide a complete picture of public opinion during the 2009 polls.
Armed with these goals and the aid of Internet technologist Selvam Velmurugam (35), Mishra converted his idea into reality on April 6 with the website Vote Report India (VRI). MiD DAY explores the site…
How VRI works?VRI allows users to report violations of the election code of conduct via SMS, e-mail and online complaints. The platform will compile these with news reports, blog posts, photos, videos and Tweets from all relevant sources on an interactive map.
This means, when you click a point on the VRI map, a timeline of all the incidents related to that location would be displayed.
“We will eventually do an analysis of incidents to present trends as well,” said Gaurav.The dual approach will up transparency levels in the election process, the founders believe.
A hit already
The duo believes VRI has managed to throw up great numbers since its launch, as it gives the youth the sense that they have the power to create positive change by making the election process transparent. Over 100 blog posts have been linked to the site and it is receiving 1,000+ page views per day. “We hit 60 reports on April 16. The most popular categories are Election Commission Interventions, Voter Bribing and Violence. As of now, most of the stories are based on stories already reported in the media,” says Gaurav.
Mishra and Selvam are confident that VRI will be around for future elections. Meanwhile, they are working on another platform for elections around the world, starting with Lebanon in June.
The team
While Mishra is involved in research on how Internet and mobile technologies transform society, Selvam has founded eMoksha.org, a non-profit organisation aimed at enabling stronger democracies through increased citizen awareness and engagement.
“When I was in India, by elections were being held in parts of Tamil Nadu. I heard friends and relatives complain about not finding their names on the electoral roll, or their vote being cast by someone else. I wondered who they would approach,” says Selvam.
They were supported by 35 other volunteers — with the core team in the US and a handful of partners and local promoters helping them reach out to organisations in India.
The service is powered by Ushahidi and SwiftRiver, and managed by eMoksha. Ushahidi is an award-winning platform that sources citizen reporting. SwiftRiver is a platform that makes sense of multiple sources of information in a fast-changing crisis situation.
VRI has also partnered with the Arabic news network Al Jazeera.
Citizens can send reports via SMS with VoteReport to 5676785, e-mail to report@votereport.in, tweet with the Hastag (#Votereport) or by logging on to www.votereport.in. You can even join the group’s communities on Facebook, Orkut, Twitter (@votereportindia), SMS GupShup or Google Groups.
Tags: Election, Election Monitoring, India, IndiaVotes09, Lok Sabha, Mid-Day, Vote Report India