What are the biggest obstacles to your success?:
The first one was credibility--the main issue was how to gain credibility and sell the idea to traditional NGOs who were reporting with pen and paper. We had to gain trust from them and not only implement the pilot but also the ideal that an average citizen can become their own police and supervise elections.
We observed a lot of the Ushahidi implementations, and [we knew] that we had to adopt the framework to Mexican society. The challenge was to think of the right branding. I know how mexicans think and we new that the luchador was going to really appeal. So to create this identity was a challenge, but I think it worked.
The first email I got was from a guy asking how he knows that I'm not a government agent that is going to track him down. I said, you're right, you dont know. And he was right, so this is why we partnered with well known NGOS that are accepted in Mexican societies that have been working on these transparency issues for the past 10 years. We also partnered with local industry and universities, and showed this prominently on the web page. This helped a lot and was a good way to overcome the distrust issue.
Another important obstacle was in remaining apolitical. I was approached by a political party that told me I want to buy your site. So we said go ahead it's public information, and they said no we want to use it just for ourselves-- because every single party in Mexico has their own network of official electoral observers--and we said no, we can't sell it, either you use it publicly or not at all. They ended up creating their own version of it.
What problem is your project aiming to overcome?:
We were reading a lot of reports saying that elections in Mexico were not corrupt anymore, and that everything was transparent and democracy's pretty cool. We wanted to find out if that was the case or not. But the main goal wasn't electoral observation, it was to engage mexican youth politically. We noticed that Mexican youth was not as engaged as it used to be in politics.
What are the roots of that problem?:
The lack of accountability in the Mexican system: people are getting tired of reporting anything because nothing happens. They say 'OK everything is corrupt, so if I complain or if I report it's not going to change anything.' So my assumption was, if I provide a platform where people can report and tag and map these reports, but also provide the necessary media to support these reports, maybe the authorities can do something about it. And we were right.
Why did you personally become involved in this project?:
Besides my company in Mexico, I'm also a consultant for UNDP and the Inter American Development bank, on the subject of technology and governance. I found out about Ushahidi, I got in touch with Andres Lajous, my partner. We wanted to make something, but we weren't sure what, and then I told him that we could use Ushahidi to map and monitor elections, and so we decided to do it.
Are you providing unofficial channels of information that should be provided by the government?:
The government had been providing a hotline, but apparently three weeks before the election they had 0 calls, whereas our system had over 200 reports already.
Why is the government not providing the information?:
Credibility. When you call a number and report something you don't know what happened to your report. With our project you see the map, the location, the video, the photos and the written testimony. This lack of accountability [regarding the government hotline] doesn't motivate average citizens to report.
How does the information published on your website turn into offline change?:
One of the most infamous electoral crimes is the buying out of votes. But now the local government and political parties cannot pay cash anymore because budgets are well monitored by both local and national NGOs. So the way they get around it is to use social programs to buy votes. So for example with the Conditional Cash Transfer program, [politicians] say 'okay, if you want to receive this Conditional Cash Transfer next year, just remember that this is the party that is providing you with it.' So that's very hard to track. For example a lot of citizens got flyers with the logo of the party saying things like 'I know you are receiving this program so you should vote for our party so that you can continue receiving it.' Citizens took pictures of those photos and put them on the website. So they were documenting the buying of votes, which has been very hard to track.
Then the special prosecutor, a well known Mexican agency, then took these reports and made them official. It was the first time that the special prosecutor had taken into account citizen reports. So they used Cuidemos El Voto as one of the official content providers. We got a call from them saying they were interested in being part of what they were doing, so if you go to the webpage you will see their logo.
Another example is the spillover: that was the federal elections. This year local elections are happening . Civil society organized and they are launching local version of Cuidemos El Voto. So from now on you will see whats going on in the entire country at the main page, but it will be feeding from the local implementations. And on sub pages [i.e. puebla.cuidemoselvoto.org] you will see what's going on in local areas.
So this is civil society organizing students and universities and using the platform as a tool. So that was our main goal--we engaged people--students and mexican youth.
How many people work on your project?:
How many hours does the whole team spend on the project?:
When Andres and I were involved we probably investing from 3 to 4 hours again during the course of a month. The developers probably invested about 1 week.
What are the most time consuming tasks?:
The training sessions that we give to civil society groups that are implementing the platform.
How do you attract new participants?:
In Puebla for example, Cuidemos El Voto is an important platform but we are working alongside a movement organized by civil society called Activate Por Puebla. Basically civil society is tired of the current governor who has been involved in different scandals, from pedophilia to kidnapping a journalist, so civil society organized--and universities as well as the Confederation of Mexican employers--are participating. Industry, Academia and Citizens are working together, going to universities creating a Cuidemos el Voto booth, giving away flyers and t-shirts tuff like that. So they're already creating a media strategy plan to engage young Mexicans. We are working with them to launch the Twitter campaign soon, and to create widgets and other tools to inform people about why they should participate and how they can help. Capacity building is one of the biggest challenges and that what we are targeting right now.
What has been the most effective method of spreading awareness about your project?:
I cannot say yet for sure, but I will say that Twitter is a very powerful tool. It's not as big in Mexico as we might think, but it's good to reach influencers [such as] important journalists. We started to Twitter and then we got interviews in mainstream newspapers and on television, so we were able to reach people that we ordinarily can't reach.
How do you plan on financially sustaining your project? :
The local implementations are sustained by citizens working for free and local NGO's adopting the tools for their own use. We have taken some small donations to cover expenses related to SMS short codes, but that's it. The whole project cost $500.
What other projects in your region should we know about?:
Ushahidi for election monitoring has so far been implemented in Bolivia, Colombia, and citizens in Venezuela are at work on one.
Comments
Does documentation lead to accountability?
I'm really looking forward to seeing how the Puebla implementation of Cuidemo el Voto goes. I think that strong collaboration with local NGO's, capacity building before the election, and working on a smaller scale could contribute toward an implementation that makes a stronger impact.
I'm interested in the pictures citizens took which documented conditional cash transfers. It's great that the Special Prosecutor's office endorsed the information, but did it lead to any accountability? Were any of the politicians or political parties who were accused of buying votes later barred from office? Were any actions taken at all?
For example, on July 5, 2009 someone reported that in Puebla they were offering 500 pesos to vote for the PAN party. But this report wasn't verified and we don't see any kind of followup. Are there examples where a report was verified and led to some sort of sanction, or at least response?
Youth participation and the importance of other experiences
The long problem of corruption that has been part of the history of Latin American political history in general and Mexico's history in particular is not a situation that will go away in just some years. More communities like this one have to become active and connected, and also more information needs to be published and discussed by the participants. I believe that most of the work that has started with communities like « Cuidemos el voto » is to fight for a new way of thinking that can actually point out the practices that compromise transparency in public processes, such as in elections. Also, one of the biggest challenges ahead for this organization is to maintain the credibility that have gained so far and to make connections that bring new dimensions into citizen's participation.
The objective of making the youth participate in politics is a huge task. Even more after decades of no political change in the country's leadership. This will take not only a lot encouragement for the youth to participate by reporting and pointing out irregular situations, but also a lot of discussion and information so the votes and the citizen participation could be responsible, and also well informed.
One of the most interesting fact in this project is the connexion they made with Ushahidi. This is an example of how new media permits that communities that are geographically far from each other can collaborate . The fact that a Mexican community looking for transparency can find a solution in Kenia is a point that needs to be underlined as one of the advantages of making communities on line and getting connected to other groups around the world and solving problems on the basis of foreign experiences.
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