Revoda and Election Monitoring in Nigeria

This paper evaluates the capacity for information and communication technologies (ICTs) to aid crowdsourced elections monitoring. Generally, we are interested in digitally enabled collective action initiatives by nonstate actors in areas of limited statehood. In the case at hand, we analyse the effect of crowdsourced election monitoring through citizen-generated reports of abuses, rigging, failures and successes through the Revoda mobile phone application in regard to the 2015 Nigerian elections. During the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, the crowdsourced election monitoring project ran in parallel with ordinary domestic and international election observations. Such monitoring projects have been performed in some other countries, and research on the methods and effects of crowdsourced election monitoring by nonstate actors in areas of limited statehood is on the rise. Scholars are focusing on the political significance of such projects, whether value is generated for citizen participation in democratization and political engagement. However, very few studies have looked at the actual content of the crowdsourced reports generated and compared the findings of the crowd with official election reports. This study investigates the content of reports in the Revoda dataset, and compared the story revealed in these reports with the conclusions in the election observation reports from a recognized institution, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Findings reveal that Revoda reports truly presented a relevant picture of the events on the day of the election. Also, the results show that Revoda users that reported on the Election Day, focussed on the voting process, security, intimidation and vote-rigging, the logging time, and location for each message generates timelines and geographical overview of the local polling stations in question. The findings suggest that crowdsourced election monitoring can help improve information about the functionality of local polling stations.