During the referendum on independence in Montenegro on May 21, 2006, the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), a Montenegrin non-government organization, became the first group to use mobile phones for all reporting required to oversee an election.

In total, 200 observers sent more than 2000 text messages directly to a database located at CDT’s headquarters, providing up-to-the-minute information about the referendum to the public.

Since then, seven other countries have followed suit – the latest being Sierra Leone in August 2007, where 500 election observers reported on election irregularities with their mobile phones.

Chris Spence, director of technology at NDI, says the rapid and accurate reporting made possible with mobile phones can lead to a more stable political environment in the post-election period.

“In Sierra Leone, for instance, NDI’s partner was able to quickly announce that the election had been conducted in a fair way and that had a stabilizing effect on the society,” he says. “In African elections, it can often take up to four days to count votes and during that time the situation can get very tense. As such, it can make a big difference to have an independent election-monitoring group making statements about its confidence in the process early on.”

Another big benefit of using mobile phones during elections is the opportunity to stay in contact with observers on election day. “When you have several thousand observers working across the country, it was never possible to stay in contact with all of them throughout election day to inform them about changes and, as importantly, keep them motivated,” Spence says. “Now, our partners can text their observers an occasional message to thank them for their hard work and give other words of encouragement, and that has helped to increase morale and participation on the day.”

Keeping observers motivated is crucial to the success of the SMS system. Although observers receive extensive training prior to election day, the system requires a high level of accuracy in the reporting, keeping them busy all day.

Spence explains: “Observers are trained to fill in a paper form containing up to 30 questions. Of those 30 questions, there might be eight or 10 that require a rapid response that we need them to text in. Observers are trained to code their answers to make sure the information is transferred correctly.

“Every time an observer reports from a polling station, the system bounces back a message to them to verify the information. This confirmation ensures accurate reporting direct from the polling station, and if there are problems a coordinator can contact the observer with a phone call if necessary. This approach has resulted in a very high level of accurate reporting.”

The text messages are transferred to a computer at the election-monitoring group’s headquarters where reports are generated and the results communicated to the public. If an observer happens to code his or her answers incorrectly, the system will alert the election officials who will contact the observer to go through the reporting procedure again.

Spence says the use of mobile phones saves a lot of time and money. “In the past, we would have to recruit up to 20 people to work at phone centers for days,” he says. “They would take messages from observers and type in the information manually. This leaves room for error, and if you add the cost of training and technology to this, it is much more expensive than text messaging.

“For example, in Albania in 2006, we sent 41,000 messages to and from observers on election day at a total cost of USD 2400; that was relatively inexpensive when you consider that we had 1300 observers working at polling stations that day.”

Spence says the SMS system is vital in making independent monitoring groups more effective and efficient. “There is no question as to whether or not it is worth it,” he says. “Now that we understand the technology, the challenge is to build our partners’ capacity so that groups around the world can use the tools to safeguard their elections without direct NDI assistance.”

Torunn Hansen-Tangen