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The Election's Digital Challenge

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The Election's Digital Challenge October 7, 2015 Election opinions on social media The election’s digital challenge @Simondlewis Oct 6 Slick-looking “Forward” pics the information side,” said Ms Ninh. are being shared by Myanmar CATHERINE Meanwhile, the UEC collaborated government officials. But what with IFES on the country’s first digital is the logo? #Burmavotes2015 TRAUTWEIN voter list, an upgrade from previous registrars of mostly handwritten infor- [email protected] mation vulnerable to loss or damage. The process of putting together OR the first time in Myan- the voter list began with a pilot pro- mar’s history, election infor- gram in three separate areas last year Fmation on candidates and that involved about 100,000 regis- voters has been moved into digital trants and 30 laptops. It was followed Simon Lewis, freelance databases. by a national rollout, a process that journalist But while the modernisation push stretched human resource capacity has yielded apps, SMS campaigns and and made use of 1100 laptops. In the a voter list website stacked with mil- preliminary display period, thou- @SengPanLasham lions of names, it has been also been sands of data entry personnel visited Oct 5 confronted by capacity challenges – General Administration Department Election monitoring trip lining still an issue in a country transition- (GAD) offices nationwide to get in- up for entire month in ethnic ing from offline to online, with errors formation out of logbooks and Min- states. Can’t wait being on persisting on paper and mistakes dif- istry of Immigration household lists the ground and observe. ficult to avoid. and into an electronic database via #MyanmarElection2015 Helping to address and overcome software meant to mirror the look of Seng Pan Lasham, political these concerns are international or- physical paperwork. commentator based in Kachin ganisations, which are collaborating Simply digitising old data does not State with the Union Election Commission ensure its accuracy, of course. The list to make information from physical has been attacked by many for vast forms available on the internet. The A resident of Thingangyun township checks the voter lists at a ward inaccuracies, with estimates that in @nyuntaung1959 Asia Foundation mainly digitised administration office. Photo: Aung Htay Hlaing some areas nearly half of all eligible Sep 28 candidate data from forms that aspir- voters have been left out. Accidents in @facebook fake page of #Thithtoolwin news ;hate- ing politicians filled out themselves, ... We weren’t quite sure how the UEC tion lab Phandeeyar and others. the transcription process have come speeches & politicizing while the International Foundation would receive it, but we approached The competition ended on Sep- to light – at least one voter has popped #SocialMedia to let #Myan- of Electoral Systems (IFES) worked them and they were surprisingly open.” tember 27, with top honours going to up on the list as a street name – and marElection2015 down with the government to compile and To get the information into a data- a team of mostly teenage developers obsolete source materials have led to Nyunt Aung, business adviser modernise the country’s first digital base, The Asia Foundation assembled that put together an application called deceased people being included. This nationwide voter list. a Unicode-friendly data entry team MVoter 2015. The app’s interface was last problem has prompted jokes that, The Asia Foundation, which estab- – an issue in itself – to type in can- designed to remind of Facebook’s. It in Myanmar, people can vote from be- @midsomernorton5 lished an office in Myanmar in 2013, didate information and scan photos connects users with information on yond this earthly life. Sep 27 had previously worked in Indonesia to from candidate registration forms. how to cast a ballot, voter eligibility The new format does have advan- #MyanmarElection2015 incorporate technology into the 2014 The modernisation process had to be and local candidates. tages, however, including heightened elections. Though the two countries flexible and able to tackle issues far “I think sometimes we can over- security of information. The UEC didn’t originally seem to line up in terms from the digital realm, however: The hype when we talk about leapfrogging said one motivation for digitising the of potential – Indonesia has more expe- foundation’s program and operations because a development process re- voter list was to keep the data perma- rience with electoral races and harbours officer Ma Mi Ki Kyaw Myint said a quires a lot of building blocks. But in nently, but that before the process a more developed tech community – few incomplete forms and even bad this one instance, you see glimpses of started it lacked technical knowledge The Asia Foundation saw the process of handwriting complicated their task. what is possible – using technology in to do so. U Win Kyi said that the com- digitisation could be “inherently useful”, Though the UEC was “extremely creative ways and bringing together mission faced challenges with soft- Cartoonist, Antipro according to Kim Ninh, its Myanmar busy” and new to the digitisation sys- ware knowledge, and also that he was representative. tem, Ma Mi Ki Kyaw Myint said the not yet sure what would happen with Connectivity in the country has commission had been “wonderfully the computers provided for the digiti- @matthewfsmith exploded by way of mobile phones – supportive”. sation process. Still, he put the voter many of them “smart” – and Myan- “There are times the UEC staff We have list database at 33.5 million names, Oct 1 UN @secgen calls for cred- mar’s tech community has taken didn’t understand our process or to remind a significant achievement given the ible election in Myanmar (too shape, she continued. technical aspects, but they were very project started from scratch. late for that), end to abuses “Increasingly there is a leapfrog- open,” she said, even going so far as Another benefit of getting away ourselves Matthew Smith, executive ging effect going on, so perhaps it to request that the foundation keep from paper is that the data is acces- director of Fortify Rights would make sense for The Asia Foun- records of obstacles they came up where we sible to more than just the UEC. Pro- dation to look at this particular proj- against in putting together the candi- spective voters can ensure their eli- ect,” she said, referring to its digitisa- date list. were coming gibility for polling day by heading to @Yanmyothein Oct 6 tion efforts. The Asia Foundation’s data entry checkvoterlist.uecmyanmar.org. “The National Development She said the official response to work was just the start: Now the infor- from in this The site has so far been visited by party will propose the Bud- their endeavour was welcoming. mation had to be put to use. For this, more than 250,000 individual users, dhist monks’ right to vote in “With traditional approaches to it was made available to hackers at an environment. with a massive spike in traffic com- the parliamentary sessions... voter education still so much needed, election-themed tech challenge, the ing on the first day the lists went on Yan Myo Thein, political this one aspect [digitising election in- community-organised Mae Pay Soh Kim Ninh commentator The Asia Foundation formation] seemed a little farfetched hackathon, hosted by local innova- CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 October 7, 2015 Facebook Q&A Ko Thu Ryain Shwe, ‘2015 is National Unity Party How has Myanmar’s like the tech transformation changed the way candidates campaign? It only applies to the pre-exams … urban areas. For me, many people [online] know my ideas and that I am going to run via social media and in 2020 it will be online media. But only a few people from my constituency know that. If a candidate wants to launch a social media very different’ campaign targeting his or her own voters it is not the best way to Ko Nay Phone Latt knows quite a bit about what happens when politics and technology collide. He’s a third- campaign. But for the political parties, online generation National League for Democracy member – now running on the party’s ticket to take a seat in the campaigns are very effective. Yangon Region Hluttaw – whose early brushes with activism include joining the 1988 uprising as an eight-year- Why did you decide old. He was sentenced to 20 years’ prison in 2008 after bloggers used his internet cafes to get news out about to use Facebook as a campaign tool? the 2007 protests, but was released as part of a mass amnesty in January 2012. Here, he speaks toCatherine I just want let the Trautwein about Myanmar’s changes and how social media will impact the November 8 election young people know I am going to run. How is this election different from Facebook has gotten huge in Myan- candidate Zeyar Thaw – one person undecided. For these voters, our Face- And they should start past ones with regard to the role of mar. Why are you using it in your used his photo and created a fake ac- book posts can be effective. We will thinking about taking part in professional technology? campaign? count, so we reported it and it’s already post our picture, we are going around politics. And I also need Technology is very different com- I have to do it because everybody al- cancelled. We can get this kind of the town and introducing ourselves to volunteers. It wasn’t pared with 2010, 2012, but the prob- ready knows me as a technology per- problem, so candidates should think the people, and at least they can see targeted at voters from lem is the people who use the tech- son.
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