All "Vochy" focused on the presidential election 2015
For the 2015 election in Belarus, a group of independent observers has developed "Vochy" (from bel. "Eyes"), a mobile application for collecting information gathered by voters.
The application helps to expand knowledge about the whole electoral process among citizens of Belarus – it informs them about their voting rights in an accessible and simple way, and give an opportunity to promptly report any witnessed violations.
Application
Information about violations submitted by users of the app will be displayed on the online map Electby.org and can be used by election observers to evaluate how honest, free and fair presidential elections are in Belarus.
Electby.org is an open-to-all interactive platform created by a group of Belarusian media activists. The main function is to collect reports of the election campaign from citizens and visualize them automatically on a map of the country. Each message appears as a spot on the interactive map under chosen categories. A message can be sent either in Belarusian or Russian.
In contrast to the mobile app recently released by the government-supported BRSM, "Vochy" is not made just to inform voters about the elections, but also to give the opportunity to uncover violations that can be spotted at polling stations. Using the app, voting citizens can anonymously report them to observers.
The app allows you to send not only a text description of what happened, but also add a photo, video or audio file and quickly share information in the social networks.
"Vochy" was developed in cooperation of independent initiatives that monitor elections in Belarus: Electby.org, Election Observation: Theory & Practice, «Pravo Vybora», «Human Right Defenders for Free Elections».
"Vochy" does not collect information about users, except for their location (at the time of informing about a violation) and technical characteristics of the phone. Even if a user leaves his or her contact details for observers for feedback, this information will not be disclosed or transferred to third parties.
At the moment, the application is available for Android users. Soon it will be released also in Belarusian. You can download "Vochy" for free from the Google Play Store.
