REPORTING ON ELECTION RESULTS USING GOOGLE MAPS

A CASE STUDY OF THE 2010 REFERENDUM RESULTS IN KENYA

OUMA LEONARD ODHIAMBOF19/1899/2007

SUPERVISOR: MR. J.N MWENDA

PRESENTATION OVERVIEW

Introduction Problem statement Objectives Methodology

Overview of methodology Area of study Data sources and tools Data Preparation

Results and analysis Conclusions & Recommendations

INTRODUCTION

One of the most critical ways that individuals can influence governmental decision-making is through voting. Voting is a formal expression of preference for a candidate for office or for a proposed resolution of an issue. Voting generally takes place in the context of a large-scale national or regional election; however, local community elections can be just as critical to individual participation in government

Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, recognizes the integral role that transparent and open elections play in ensuring the fundamental right to participatory government

If elections are not properly managed, riots and even civil war can break out in a country. It is therefore important that election results be disseminated to the public as soon as practically possible through the available media.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Kenya’s first direct elections for Africans to the Legislative Council took place in 1957. In May 1963, elections were held based on the widely held principle of “one person, one vote.”

Kenya has successfully held largely peaceful elections thereafter

The December 2007 elections marked a radical departure from these positive trends. As the initial vote count came in to the ECK, opposition candidate appeared to have a substantial lead.

As the count continued, however, the incumbent closed the gap and overtook his opponent by a substantial margin to win reelection amid largely substantiated claims of rigging ( IFES Kenya, 2008), leading to protests and riots and discrediting of the ECK for its involvement

…………CONT’

The protests escalated into unprecedented violence, leading to over 1,000 deaths and the internal displacement of more than 350,000 people (IREC, 2008)

According to the IFES report, most of the operational tasks were still accomplished manually. In 2007, laptop computers sat unused while the tallying of results at polling stations was conducted by hand, leading to a delay in transmission to headquarters.

The delay in announcement of the final results at the National Tallying Center, led to some media houses relying on unspecified sources to broadcast and announce results ahead of the ECK, in an effort to outdo each other (IREC, 2008).

…………….CONT’

The Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) was formed to replace the ECK. Its mandate was to institutionalize sustainable electoral processes that would guarantee free and fair elections, part of which included the development of a modern system for collection, transmission and tallying of electoral data.

IIEC was replaced by a permanent electoral body, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in line with the new constitution. It has embarked on various reform in the electoral system , including; the parallel vote tallying system, electronic voter registration and the electronic vote tallying and transmission.

Geospatial technology integrated with information systems can easily help to solve some of the problems. This is achieved by disseminating all the results, final and provisional to the public through a dynamic map as the results tickle in.

OBJECTIVES

The main objective of the study is to develop a Geospatial approach to some of these electoral problems to assist in prompt dissemination of electoral results to the public in an easy to understand and visually appealing media.

The system will enable update of election results in the Google Fusion Tables* and the final output displayed as a Google Map on a dedicated website.

The specific objectives: Mapping the electoral constituencies in Kenya To develop a database of the registered voters in each constituencies. Using the 2010 referendum results, prepare a Google Fusion Tables showing the

results To display the results as map on a dedicated website, including the related

charts.

*A modern data management web application used to host, manage, collaborate on, visualize, and publish data and maps online.

METHODOLOGYData

identification

Data collection Data

conversion and

processing

Constituency Boundaries and

their details

Referendum Results:

Textual data and charts

Editing

Geodatabase creation

Map Styling and Embedding on Website

Error?

Results and Analysis

Data Validation

YES

NO

AREA OF STUDY

Kenya, officially the republic of Kenya, lies between the geographical coordinates 4° North to 4° South of the equator and Longitude 34°East to 41° East. 

It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to its south-east,  Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north-west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the north-east

WHY THE STUDY AREA

Lack of election data at lower electoral levels

Availability of reliable data at constituency level covering the entire country

Need to show the national voting patterns in the 2010 Constitutional Referendum.

DATASETS

Datasets Source Description

2010 Constituency Boundaries

Virtual Kenya(www.virtualkenya.org)

A KML file of the 210 constituencies as at 2010.

2010 Referendum Results in Kenya

IEBC(www.iebc.or.ke)

A PDF document showing the results at constituency level

County Profiles Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI)(www.opendata.go.ke)

A list of the 47 Counties and the constituencies that fall in them

TOOLS

Hardware Computer with the specifications of 1 GB RAM and 3.0 GHz

processor speed, 80 GB HDD. 2 GB Flash Disk. Safaricom Broadband Modem and Simcard HP DeskJet F2483 Printer/Scanner.

 Software

Google Fusion Tables (Beta)* Notepad++ PDF to Excel Converter Microsoft Office 2010. Fusion Table Layer Builder

*Experimental

DATA PREPARATION

Data conversion from PDF to Microsoft Excel

Importation of the results into Google Fusion Tables

Importation of the constituency boundaries to fusion tables

Merging the results with the boundaries Visualization and styling of the

resultant map

RESULTS OF THE CONVERSION

RESULTS AS IMPORTED TO FUSION TABLES

CONSTITUENCY BOUNDARIES AFTER IMPORTATION

MERGED TABLES

STYLED MAP OF THE RESULTS

ANALYSIS OF VOTER TURNOUT

OVERALL RESULTS

67%

31%

2%

Overall Results

YesNoRejected

A COMPARISON BETWEEN 2005 AND 2010 TURNOUTS

Nairo

bi

Centra

l

East

ern

Wes

tern

Coast

Nyanz

a

North

Eas

tern

Rift V

alle

y

38.8

61.149.6 45.3

34.5

56.3

21.7

60.570.89

78.63

66.34 64.5455.52

76

50.26

80.87

2005 2010

WEB VIEWS PER COUNTRY

63%

24%

7% 3%3%1%

Visits per Country

KenyaUnited StatesRussiaGermanyNetherlandsCanada

Kenyaelectionmaps.blogspot.com

DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS

This shows the interest by Kenyans to election related issues and the ease of access to internet, which has cut a niche to itself as means of sharing information by the public.

With the landing of the fiber optic cables, access to the internet has become affordable to many and even much faster.

According to latest statistics from US-based Ookla’s NetIndex, Kenya is second in the continent, after Ghana which has emerged as having the fastest broadband internet speeds in Africa., (Aptantech, 2012)), further enabling accessibility to such maps.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, it can be said that: It is possible to display election results on Google

Maps. Possibilities for the results to be hosted on the

internet. Possibilities to reduce errors in election results

tallying and analysis. Chances of the public showing interest in such

online maps and actually viewing them. N/B Care must be given to the data entry and

editing

RECOMMENDATIONS

With the advancement in technology in the country, there is need to embrace the electronic voting and merge the same with GIS or web mapping service that the commission may employ.

The IEBC needs to build the capacity of their employees to be able to implement GIS related aspects of the elections. Such employees need to have skills in data capture, editing, transmission and visualization in a GIS environment. These might include GIS managers, GIS programmer, GIS analyst and data entry personnel.

There is need to explore the internet as a possible avenue for release of election results to the public.

There is need to extend the scope of the study to cover the County Assembly Wards. There is also need to incorporate road access so as to facilitate network analysis. This is important as influences the creation of the electoral units as per the new constitution.

THANK YOU