We launched Ethiopia Vote Report with a local partner in Ethiopia knowing that the turnout would be low. The project was entirely a volunteer effort and without the resources to secure the system and train people in how to use it in a dangerous and complicated place like Ethiopia would have been foolish. Nevertheless, we were able to have an application translated in Amharic and a number of first hand reports that otherwise might not have made it to the English language.

Ethiopia Vote Monitor

Our goal is to redefine what democracy can mean to people by facilitating an understanding of civic engagement. In the lead up to election day, this means a campaign to teach people what their relationship is to government and how they themselves can start to make it better. Educating citizens in the use of free tools is key to supporting individual freedoms. Tools such as mapping, blogging, media production, and search creates a powerful infrastructure that supports transparency and accountability, and prevents violence.

While this system only received 15 reports, on election day itself, it was visited 62 times. I’m confident that number is part of an exponential rise in the number of people who actually heard the message contained within those reports.

Without any large-scale deployments of citizen monitoring of elections, it’s impossible to know the true benefit or impact. But I’m confident that as people around the world begin to see these kinds of projects deployed in their own countries and in their own languages, it will begin to redefine the very concept of democracy and help to inspire new forms of citizen engagement.

That’s why it was so exciting for us to be involved in another election monitoring project, this time with Philippines Clean Election 2010. Presidential elections, legislative elections and local elections in the Philippines were held just last week. Working as an all-volunteer effort with grassroots organizations, we were able to plot over 100 reports and follow 4 times as many tweets. An all-volunteer effort, this project came together quickly and effectively. It also added to the monitoring of another group in the Philippines with Vote Report.

As elections continue to occur around the world, it will be increasingly important to engage local populations in not only the process itself, but also in the oversight of it. The beauty is in taking a moment that captures the hearts and minds of participants and teaching the lesson that democracy is more than casting the ballot, but it’s the process of civic engagement and protecting those votes. Whether in the USA with Twitter Vote Report or in the Philippines, citizens are starting to engage more and we’ll continue to facilitate this in any way that we can.

People lining up in a precint in Barangay Merville to vote in the first automated elections in the Philippines

Humble as he is, he dedicated the Clinton prize to all Ushahidi volunteers. Congrats again teams! We’ve been writing a lot recently about the successes that volunteers have had crisismapping in response to earthquakes and it’s exciting to hear Patrick to set a goal to train “100 universities in the developing world” in crisismapping. It’s a brilliant idea and a powerful way to have pre-crisis preparedness. Particularly when coupled with 21st century learning initiatives like Project Einstein, where young people on the ground can use photography and mapping to build out the critical infrastructure necessary for a crisismapping system like Ushahidi to be effective.

Advisor Patrick receives award from Bill Clinton

Mark will lead a session on the OpenMyCity project. The goal of OpenMyCity is to find the best ideas about how to make use of municipal open data by asking citizens and organizations to answer a simple fill-in-the-blank question: “If I knew ___, I could do ___.”

OpenMyCity is backed by a coalition that formed around the Pioneers conference that took place recently in New York and Amsterdam. At PCamp, Mark will lead a workshop to build a plan for capturing as many stories as possible. This effort provides a human component to the technological and legislative efforts already happening around municipal data.

Digital Democracy is proud to sponsor this conference. The conversations that will happen here are at the forefront of considering how to use new technology to stimulate civic participation in the United States and abroad.