Doing old things in a new way? Technology and crowdsourced observation in the 2015 Tanzanian election

Abstract

In Tanzania, the year 2015 election was a competitive one for the ruling and opposition parties. Although the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi had won the election, the level of competition was high, with large number of political supporters for both ruling and opposition party Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo. Election observation groups were monitoring the race for presidential, parliamentary and council elections. Coalition on Election Monitoring and Observation in Tanzania deployed the use of technology to engage the crowd using magpi application to observe and generate pre-election events. Observation reports were visually mapped in a crowdsourced platform called Uchaguzi Wetu 2015. This articles analyses the type of the crowd engaged and generated incidents on voter education and campaign rallies. In general, crowdsourced initiator engaged bounded observers using digital technology. Bounded observers were equipped with magpi application installed in their smartphones, tablets and laptops to generate daily reports using pre-defined instrument. Here deployment of bounded crowdsourcing does not differ from traditional method, but complement the process of observation using technologies for collecting and visualisation of data in real time. Crowdsourced method to be inclusive, open call to the crowd should be deployed to collect election observation information from the public.