CMEV’s election monitoring featured on Technology for Transparency Network

I was recently interviewed by the Technology for Transparency Network, an initiative of GlobalVoices, on the work I do with the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV). They were particularly interested in the pioneering manner in which CMEV uses the web and the Internet to aid its work, which I had written about in detail […]

Election monitoring using new media: Notes from my experience in Sri Lanka

Ushahidi’s blog has a great post on the development of a tech toolbox for election monitoring. Unsurprisingly, it is anchored to the use of Ushahidi as a platform for election monitoring, which has been used quite effectively in India amongst other places. Through the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), I introduced Web 2.0 and […]

The pros and cons of crowdsourcing election monitoring

MobileActive.org’s Katrin Verclas has a great article looking at the pros and cons of crowdsourcing election monitoring, based on the experience of Lebanon recently.  I agree that crowdsourcing anything leaves much to be desired in terms of accuracy and information fit to feed into critical decision support processes. This is why the ICT4Peace Foundation is […]

Mapping violence during elections and voter education

This is not the first time I’ve helped plot violence related to elections in Sri Lanka. In my first post I noted that the map helped journalists better understand the degree of violence on the ground. Things are no better in the lead-up to the Western Provincial Council elections. Just like previous maps, this map […]

A grotesque picture – Election violence in Sri Lanka

Spent the last couple of days updating a map of election violence in Sri Lanka. It’s depressing work. A culture of violence, largely perpetrated by the ruling party (the UPFA), and also demonstrating signs of mindless tit-for-tat attacks by the UNP pervades the Sabaragamuwa and North Central Provinces in the lead up to election day […]

Election monitoring using ICT – Metrics, programmes and services

Some data and programmes used in and from CMEV’s election monitoring platform. Email updates sent during the course of the day – 15,500 via local SMTP server Data sent (via ADSL) – approx. 750Mb Data sent (via SLT 3G HSPA) – approx. 150Mb Data received (via ADSL) – approx. 1Gb Data received (via 3G HSPA) – […]

WordPress.com goes down – A chink in the “cloud” and how to plan for it

The problem with cloud computing is two fold. One, the assumption based on the marketing spiel and hype that surrounds it that nothing will ever go wrong with data stored on and accessed via the Internet and web. Two, when something awry does occur, the almost complete inability for cloud services and products to continue […]

Maps of election violence and malpractices – Eastern Province Elections, Sri Lanka, 10th May 2008

Complementing the micro-blogging initiative set up to generate reports from citizen on election violence and malpractices, set up a Google Maps based solution for the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) to put election related incidents on a map. There are currently two maps. See here for details. Click here to get updates from CMEV […]