Using Ushahidi to Monitor the Egyptian Transition

[Guest blog post by Alex Mayyasi, a graduate of Stanford University's International Relations program, class of 2011, living in Cairo, Egypt. Alex interned with the Development and Institutionalization Support Center during Egypt's 2011-2012 parliamentary elections] On November 28, 2011, elections began in Egypt as part of the political transition plan overseen by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces. The full plan calls for elections for the People’s Assembly, followed by elections for the Shura Council, a more consultative body that along with the People’s Assembly comprises the Parliament. According to the plan, the Parliament will then choose the members of a constitutional assembly to draft a new constitution before presidential elections begin in late June 2012. The Development and Institutionalization Support Center (DISC), an Egyptian NGO, is using Ushahidi to crowdsource election monitoring during the Egyptian transition. The project is called U-Shahid or Enta Shahid, which in Arabic means, “You witness.” DISC first set up U-Shahid to monitor Egypt’s 2010 parliamentary elections. This year, it has so far been used to monitor elections for the People’s Assembly, the third and final round of which came to a close on January 11, 2012. In getting the word out about U-Shahid, DISC counted on social media. DISC utilized its online following, which includes, for example, over 65,000 Likes on Facebook. In addition, many people working on U-Shahid, whether as employees or volunteers, have thousands of followers. With our partner NGO, the Egyptian Democratic Academy, we trained volunteers to act as monitors and send in reports during the voting and a team to help manage incoming reports. DISC employees acted as backup. Those sending in reports were asked for a quick description of what they were observing. They also had the option to attach a photo or video as evidence backing up their report, or to include a link to such evidence. They also categorized their report in categories such as “Intimidation” in the larger category of “Violence” or “Polling station closed early” under the larger category of “Polling Stations.” And it wasn’t all doom and gloom, “All Went Well” was an often used category for reports. Visitors to the U-Shahid site could vote (yes or no) whether they believed received reports to be true, allowing people to contribute in a small way to verifying the accountability of reports. Additionally, Egyptians could sign up to get alerts about reports, particularly reports within a certain proximity to their home or location, allowing access to dynamic and personalized news. Volunteers receiving incoming reports then checked the classification of the reports, expanded the description, and filled in the location, if it was absent. The final responsibility of verification fell to the administrators. Our most common verification strategies were to corroborate reports by checking online news, looking at attached photos or videos, asking our local volunteers to investigate personally or through their local contacts, or contacting the sender. We had an additional team on the ground that could travel to investigate and verify reports of large-scale fraud. Our verification volunteers also had two additional trainings. First, they learned how to use ICT4Peace’s verification matrix plug-in, which helped administrators ascertain the reliability of reports. Second, they had training from Reuters reporters, as traditional media has developed a range of intricate verification strategies in the face of their need to draw from social media. In broad strokes, the reports recorded widespread illegal campaigning (such as campaigning to people waiting in line to vote – a banned practice), some evidence of vote buying, and plenty of examples of disorganization, but relatively little evidence of violence being used or systemic fraud. While all reports were of course made available in real time, reports such as this one, on the first stage of voting, were emailed to journalists and organizations that we believed would benefit from the information. As the Egyptian military proved hostile to the idea of election monitors, and in fact banned official international monitoring, our reports were only as valuable as the attention they gained among the public and among groups with a role in policy. In evaluating the project, DISC found that U-Shahid was less successful than in 2010, receiving fewer reports and less media attention. A number of lessons can be learned and observations made: -       U-Shahid was less well known in comparison to 2010, when it became so popular that it inspired four additional Ushahidi maps to monitor the election. This can be attributed to media focus being on the violence and protests in Tahrir Square in the lead up to elections, as compared to 2010 when a number of television programs featured U-Shahid. Also, in 2010 DISC purchased advertising space on Youm7, a popular Egyptian news service, but could not do the same this year, as our grants were less generous. This should serve as a reminder of the inadequacy of social media by itself and the necessity of a robust marketing campaign. -       Two additional factors led to a decreased volume of submitted reports. First, this year saw even more election monitoring projects with and without the use of Ushahidi by organizations and newspapers offering cash to monitors. Depending on volunteers, we could not compete for reports with those organizations offering cash. And the proliferation of maps reduced the attention given to each. Attempts made to build a coalition with other NGOs and newspapers to work with DISC on U-Shahid were rebuffed due to a culture in Arab countries of organizations being more interested in getting credit than in forging effective partnerships. Second, monitors feared violent reprisals for documenting cases of fraud at the hands of police, the military, or hired thugs. During clashes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street in the run up to the election, for example, people recording abuses on camera were specifically targeted. -       The feature allowing visitors to the U-Shahid site to vote on whether they believe a report to be true was rarely used and of no particular benefit -       In December, the military raided a number of international and local NGOs as part of an “investigation” into the foreign funding of NGOs and their potentially suspect motives. This complements an ongoing smear campaign against NGOs. While this threatens DISC’s ability to continue work on the project, it also points to the resilience of crowdsourcing, as traditional election monitoring projects were cancelled by a number of NGOs in response to the military closing their offices and leaving their legal status in limbo. -       DISC is planning a complementary follow-up project called Enta Sharek (“You Share”) in which focus groups in five areas will be shed light on their experiences during the elections. No reason that traditional information gathering techniques can’t be used to complement our efforts!