This week a coalition of Venezuelan non-governmental organizations rolled out Guachiman Electoral (Electoral Watchman), an electronic platform facilitating citizen monitoring of the December elections. It allows people to send denunciations directly on the web page, through Twitter, text message, or WhatsApp. If the complaint contains the required information it is registered on a map of Venezuela, which reflects if it has been confirmed or not.
This type of crowdsourcing citizen activism using Ushahidi software has been given multiple uses around the world, from tracking disaster response to elephant poaching. But its origins are in electoral observation in Kenya.
