ELECTIONS User Manual
Contents
1. DemTools by NDItech NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE gt 1 Acknowledgements Elections Data Management System User Manual v 1 1 last modified 10 23 2014 The National Democratic Institute NDI is a nonprofit nonpartisan nongovernmental organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide NDItech assists NDI partners and staff members around the world integrate technology into democracy assistance programming in innovative and sustainable ways The Democracy Toolkit DemTools was designed to provide easy to use webapp solutions empowering civic groups and political institutions to be more effective at their organizing and communication for democracy and human rights The development of the tools described in this manual was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy NED The Elections DemTool manual was written by Meron Menwyelet with contributions by Christine Schoellhorn Leslie Dudden Mahvash Taqi and others The software described was created by Tim Akimbo takinbo timbaobjects com in conjunction with the National Democratic Institute NDI has greatly appreciated Tim s work on the system which he has dubbed Apollo and recommends him highly Of the many people who contributed to this project we would like to specially thank Richard Klein for his tireless work over the development of the various iterations of this system and his vocal commitment to credible elections2. To learn more about NDI and DemTools please visit demworks org demtools and follow us on Twitter at NDI and NDItech In the physical world our headquarters are located at 455 Massachusetts Avenue 8th Floor Washington D C 20001 All material not otherwise copyrighted is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4 0 International License To view a copy of this license visit http creativecommons org licenses by sa 4 0 or send a letter to Creative Commons 444 Castro Street Suite 900 Mountain View California 94041 USA Elections Manual Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Accessing Your Account 2 1 Account Administration 3 The Election Dashboard 4 Managing Data Using Checklists 4 1 Editing Data 5 Filtering Data 6 Sending Bulk Text Messages to Observers 7 Critical Incidents 8 Managing Participants 9 Managing Messages 10 Conducting Analysis 3 1 Introduction Information and communication technologies for development ICT4D are powerful tools for organizing and advocacy The Elections platform was launched as part of NDI s Democracy Toolkit DemTools DemTools provides basic and easy to use solutions for common tech problems in the democracy and human rights space that are accessible to programs that lack funding for sophisticated software development Of course the right political and program factors still need to be in place along with adequate funding for implementation and part
3. 202998983971 202998928666 202881272332 202998290930 202994275280 202888132521 202990725907 202995988880 als Analyses v Arrival 2 Parti ipants Results Status Setup Voting Me nenwyelet ndi_ org X Send Message J Expot v Arrival Status Counting Results Clear Edit m m m by an observer Here you can also add edit or delete observer data for a checklist Be sure to click Save at the bottom of the page when you have finished entering all information Elections ft Das Edit Submission Simulation 1 Participant Texted Phone Role Location Supervisor 21001 Christine Glover 202990854769 eckists g Crit 265994723015 PZJ OBS Burgess Jr High School CENTRAL Region 4M illinois DS N A al Incidents ala Anah mmenwy History v elet ndi org v 5 Filtering Data The default view of the Election platform shows all data available from all election observers The filter box shown below allows you to narrow that information or search for specific data m I gt Q Q j X Dashboard aea x a ai on 3 rites iii The Participant ID field in the filter can be used to jump directly to data submitted by an individual observers using their ID number Using the Location drop down menu you can also select the location you are interested in viewing which might be a province district or an individual pol
4. Ceaplete 17 Complate 2 amp Gcaciekas amp Ceaplete z Complete 1 Missing data indicates that an observer has not submitted any data for the specified checklist whereas partial is used to indicate that an election monitor has submitted a portion but not all of the required data for a checklist i e they have answered some questions but have left others blank A monitor s data will not be counted as complete until they have submitted all necessary data for that segment of the monitoring process For information on how dashboard information can be filtered by the election data set checklist or location see the Filtering Data section of this manual 4 Managing Data Using Checklists The checklists section of the Elections platform allows you to view edit and filter election data Each line reflects an observer s reporting at one unique polling station during a particular period of time arrival setup voting counting and results and allows you to track the progress of an election Arrival Setup i W The ability to evaluate an election requires having complete and accurate data from all of your Voting d di Counting Results Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit Edit designated polling stations The checklist screen enables you to keep track of what information has
5. come in at any point of the day Data can be filtered by observer s geographical location ID and data completion status A red circle is used to indicate fields with missing data whereas a yellow triangle means that partial information is missing A green circle indicates the data for that checklist is complete and a green check mark under the cell phone icon means that for reports received via text message the number submitting the report matches the number on file for that observer For more information on managing checklists see the Filtering Data section of this manual 4 1 Editing Data From the checklist section of the Elections platform you can edit observation data by clicking on the Edit icon on the right hand side of the page as shown below Elections Checklists Simulation Setup Status 21001 21002 21003 21004 21005 21006 21007 21008 21009 Clicking on Edit will bring you to a screen where you can view and alter the information submitted Region 4M CENTRAL CENTRAL CENTRAL CENTRAL CENTRAL CENTRAL CENTRAL CENTRAL CENTRAL Sample DS Illinois Florida Colorado Georgia Maine Arkansas Arizona Illinois Idaho Voting Status Participant Christine Glover Ellie Fleming Lisa Bryant Beth Watts Dean Glover Zachary Wilson Ashley Wilson David Thorton Catherine Wells Critical Incidents Counting Status Phone 202990854769
6. to the question whereas 6 1 person responded No 14
7. ayed matches the number in your target group Also be mindful that sending bulk text messages to observers costs money You don t want to spam your participants so only send messages when appropriate Note that to be able to send messages the Elections platform will need to be linked to a bulk SMS management system like Clickatell or Telerivet Send Message To 800 recipients 0 characters 1 message part 10 7 Critical Incidents Critical incidents are special reports submitted by observers which aim to immediately draw attention to and possibly trigger action on an egregious violation of election processes or laws Under Critical Incidents in the navigation bar you can view the number and type of critical incident that have been submitted by election observers Similar to when viewing checklists critical incidents are displayed using categories Links are available to add a new incident or export data for sharing and you can also filter or search data based on a specified criteria such as the status of the incident report Sample v ID Region 4M DS Participant Phone T U V W X Y Z Q Edit 51009 CENTRAL Brianna Wilson 202995439162 w ds v 53008 NORTHERN Lucas Douglas 202882333306 x a wo Edit 52002 EASTERN Samantha Graves 202996082028 e Y 51013 CENTRAL chase Mack 202997435252 x A Y 53004 NORTHERN Brianna Fox 202995293167 v N Y Edit On the incident report a red circle indicates that a critical incident occurred i
8. fd3fe ff1fg1fh1fj1 mc22118 tv Invalid message thanks Please check and resend mc24128caitcb2ccicdiceicficg4ch2cj2ck2cm2cn2cp3 Thank you Your report was received You sent mc24105 u amanwasbeaten mec21204 t The PVT training for you and and your PVT Observers is 15 May Contact all your PVT Observers and remind them to travel tomorrow Attendance must be 100 a 13 10 Conducting Analysis Under Analysis in the navigation bar you can view a breakdown of all of the election data you are working with You can view the process analysis by checklist data or by critical incident data In the checklist analysis you will see a breakdown of the checklists by questions and a representation of the completion status of each question You can also filter the data based on region In the example below for an Arrival checklist a question with the SMS code AA reads as follows Had the polling officials arrived at the polling station by 5 30am Checklists Analysis imple United States Arrival Yes No Reported Missing AA iad the polling officials arrived at the pollir All 94 16 6 1 2 17 98 783 For this question you can see that only 2 of observers 17 people who should have submitted an answer for this question have actually done so information for 98 of observes 783 people is still missing Additionally for the 2 who have submitted an answer 94 of observers 16 people have responded Yes
9. ing election observers include messaging participants filtering and searching for participants and exporting participant data into a CSV file Note that you can edit and update a participants information at any time by clicking on Edit located next to the observer s name Messages Accuracy Completion Rating View 0 100 100 wWw View xX 12 9 Managing Messages Under Messages in the navigation bar you can view and search the raw text message conversations that have taken place between the Election platform system and all observers This can assist in tracking missing or incomplete messages or in advising observers on how they may be making mistakes in generating their messages For example if an observer claims they have been sending messages but they are not showing up in the system you could search for their ID or phone number here to look for any problems Elections Messages Date Time May 19 3 35 PM 2014 May 19 3 35 PM 2014 May 19 3 06 PM 2014 May 19 3 06 PM 2014 May 19 2 27 PM 2014 May 19 2 21 PM 2014 May 19 1 34 PM 2014 Mobile 202881351402 202881351402 202888640401 202888640401 202881554303 202881554303 202997798157 Direction OUT OUT OUT OUT Clear Text Unknown question codes DFB You sent mc21113aa1ea08345eb00270ec 008 1 3ed00572ee0037 1ef0001 Deg00000eh00030ej0090 1 ek00131em00124en00456 p00301eq00301 er00031es00401 et0021 4fa3dfb3fc 3
10. ling station The Locations field has an autocomplete capability to match typing so you can begin to enter the name of a desired location a province or polling station name for example and the system will show you all entries that match To further narrow the data in the Elections platform you can filter by the completion status i e missing partial or complete of the checklist you are interested in viewing i e setup or voting This is particularly useful when you are trying to contact observers whose data has not yet been received Click on the Clear button to return to your full data set and when you are done with a search Otherwise you will see incomplete and often confusing results Note that variants of the same filter can be used on critical incidents messaging and participant information 9 6 Sending Bulk Text Messages to Observers Under Messages in the navigation bar you can click on the Send Message button to send a mass text message to select observers Note that accessing the send message feature may require specific permissions and may not apply to your level of access Using a filter can help you narrow down the recipients who will receive your SMS to those individuals who appear on your screen for example all those for whom the Setup message is marked as missing Note that the To line will always indicate the number who will receive a given message so be sure that the number displ
11. n the selected category A green checkmark under the eye icon indicates that the observer witnessed the incident while a green checkmark under the phone icon indicates that a phone verification of the incident occurred Similar to the checklist page you can click on Edit to change this information You can also send a message to all persons who have submitted a critical incident form or filter desired recipients by status using this feature Hovering your mouse over the letters shown below will provide a description of the incident category E Edit D 11 8 Managing Participants Under Participants in the navigation bar you can view the profiles of the election observers who have submitting data including critical identifying information such as an observer s name ID and telephone number By clicking on the Import Participation button you can also import participant lists into the Election platform Note that this may requires special access that may not be available to you given your account settings Using the Elections platform you can view the performance of participants by clicking the Performance Evaluation icon and then on View located next to a participant s name Performance evaluations help managers calculate the effectiveness of observers with regards to the accuracy and timeliness of their reporting as well as more subjective calculations ili Performance Evaluation Other options for manag
12. ner training Given that elections are fundamental to democracy the Elections platform was originally developed by the NDItech team to streamline the gathering and analysis of election data and ease information gathering by citizen observers For over 30 years NDI has worked with civic organizations to provide a credible independent check on their countries elections Domestic election monitoring where local groups work to systematically evaluate the process and results of their own polls has proven to be a potent check on electoral fraud Citizens armed with a carefully considered checklist of elements to observe go to one of a selected range of polling stations Stationed there before the station opens often before the sun rises until the final vote counting is done sometimes by lantern light these monitors carefully document the process These reports are then consolidated and analyzed enabling election analysts and political experts to determine what it all means With so much information to be processed quickly and accurately in the pressure cooker of an often volatile political landscape a database to gather and automate the processing validation analysis and visualization of election day becomes indispensable Enter the Elections DemTool The first version of the Elections platform was developed by Tim Akimbo in conjunction with NDI to support effective elections data management for the 2011 Nigerian Presidential election Since
13. s i Participants i Wessages mmenwyelet indi org Simulation II iE Events Dashboard Simulation AL Admin Sample Checklists T i Resgi 9 Administrative Divisions sn an sft avi 1 Q Locations Arrival Setup Voting Counting Results Logout Missing 783 Missing 779 Missing 6 Missing 798 Missing 799 Partial Partial 15 B Partial 789 Partial 0 Partial oO Complete 17 Complete 2 Complete 5 Complete 2 Complete i 5 3 The Election Dashboard Clicking on Dashboard at the top left hand side of your screen will bring you to a page that provides an overview of all scheduled messages from observers that have come into the system The central visualization is a graphical display of the status of incoming data including the number and percentage of participant data that is missing partial or complete Throughout the system described in this manual observer data is segmented into five categories arrival setup voting counting and results to assist data clerks and managers in managing incomplete data sets Note that elections could have more or fewer rounds of reporting than described here Dashboard Simulation N ganpie Chace z ijai Reset Arrival Setup Voting Counting Results Missing 783 Hiasing 779 Hissaing Hlissing 7593 Missing 799 BD Partial gt oO B Partial gt 15 D Partia e 709 Partial 6 B Partial gt
14. then the Elections platform has been an instrumental part of the election monitoring process in Zambia Zimbabwe Azerbaijan Malawi and a number of Nigerian gubernatorial races Note that the screenshots pictures in this manual were from specific elections so what you see may vary somewhat This manual is intended to outline the basic instruction for users attempting to input analyze and understand elections data using the Elections platform For information on the process of citizen observation of elections please refer to the work of NDI s Elections team particularly The Quick Count and Election Observation An NDI Guide for Civic Organizations and Political Parties 4 2 Accessing Your Account To get started login to your account with your username and password If you have trouble logging in contact your system s administrator for support Once you are logged in a drop down menu will appear If you have access to a number of different election events for example simulations and multiple election days this will allow you to choose the the activity of the day Click on Go when you are ready to proceed Choose Activity Simulation a 2 1 Account Administration For managing your personal account click on your username in the top right hand corner This dropdown also contains the Logout option to completely and securely log out of your account Dashboard Checklists Critical nddents dp Analyse
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search