A group of media and technology companies, as well as an NGO, have joined hands to launch a crowdsourcing project to calculate and report voting results online in parallel with the Election Commission.
Vote62.com, a cooperation of The Momentum online news outlet, a day magazine, a day BULLETIN, Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw) and opendream, a technology firm, is urging people to join its efforts.
It is appealing to all people to help report vote results and anyone can help with a few taps on their smartphones without the need to register first.
The project is seeking two groups of volunteers to work. One group, which it calls “Shutter folks”, take photos of the final voting tally at each of 92,320 polling stations nationwide after the votes have been counted. The count normally begins after the doors close at 5pm or until the last voters who reported before 5pm are able to cast the ballots.
The Shutter folks can then upload those photos to its website using smartphones. The only requirement is the photos must include the poll station numbers and the total votes of all parties -- the elements normally on the vote counting form. The Shutter folks apparently have to physically be at the poll stations.
The other group, called the “Filling folks”, help input the figures in the photos submitted by the Shutter folks into a prepared form online at the website. These Filling folks can help from anywhere in the world.
The system set up by the group will then process the results real-time as soon as the form for each polling station is filled. The results will then be shown on the website real-time and can later be compared with the EC reports.
The project owners said the purpose is to watch out for possible corruption, verify the figures and show force as citizens in the March 24 poll.
“We can help make the election more transparent, free and fair so we get the people voters actually elected as their representatives to govern instead of leaving the country’s future in the hands of a group of people,” they said on Facebook.
