NICE to track electoral incidents: Deploys 5 464 monitors and observers
The National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) Public Trust is deploying 5 002 stationary monitors and 462 roving observers across the country to record and send data on standard election observation and incidences as they happen during the Tuesday’s Tripartite election process.
NICE Executive Director, Ollen Mwalubunju said the aim is to track any developments during the elections for interventions by stakeholders, thereby contributing to the integrity of what are billed to be closely contested polls.
“The 5002 monitors will be stationed in all the Malawi Electoral Commission’s polling centres across the country and they will be collecting information in their respective polling centres which will be transmitted to the Election Situation Room.
“The 462 roving observers shall lead the process of data collection which shall be sent using dedicated SMS short code and secure android application developed by mHub for use under the Election Situation Room,” he said.
“The reports sent will be in response to the stands Election Observer Check List on categories that include human resources, voting procedures, voting materials and incidences that define whether an election was fair, free and credible.” said Mwalubunju.
Mwalubunju said the data will be analysed in real time by a team of experts to provide constructive information to various electoral stakeholders for their urgent action, operational responses and to feed into broader report on how elections are or how they were conducted.
“We will be able to provide a mechanism for real time interventions to incidences as they happen during the election process,” he added.
He further encouraged citizen journalists to send reports on incidences as they happen through the election process through an intergraded SMS channel.
“The Trust has already started receiving issues and incidences from citizens through 6466 for Airtel users and 0888242063 for TNM users.
“We are appealing to all Malawians to use this platform to send messages to the message centre,” said Mwalubunju.
Malawians will on May 21 cast their vote in a bid to elect a President, Members of Parliament and Ward Councilors.
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