In time for the national elections in Pakistan, Bytes For All, conducted the following activities to monitor general elections in the country. As the mainstream media remain obsessed with the breaking news cycle, neglecting the marginalized communities, we engaged with citizen journalists on the ground in some of the remote conflict-ridden areas to bring elections stories on a platform setup for this purpose.
PakVoices is a project by Bytes For All Pakistan supported by Free Press Unlimited (FPU). PakVoices is seeking to bring greater transparency and accountability to governance in marginalized regions of Pakistan by promoting the flow of information within those regions, and by highlighting the most pressing local issues in national media outlet
Pak Votes Map: As was successfully done during 2013 general elections, we will use this existing Ushahidi platform for election violence mapping. We expect that reports will come from all over the country courtesy the network partners of Bytes For All, Pakistan. These reports will be categorized in several categories, which are also translated in Urdu.
Election Manual: Bytes for All has published an election manual for citizen journalists, which will provide for basic ethical reporting and code of conduct. The manual will be useful for the citizens at large, beginners as well as professional journalists.
Election Training for Citizen Journalists: Pak Voices will train the network of citizen journalists as well as field monitors who would keep the platform posted with minute-to-minute details in the run-up to the elections. The field monitors would be trained in how to report safely and accurately from the ground. The planned three trainings will include 72 participants or citizen journalists who would report from their respective constituencies.
PakVotes Election Cell: Pak Voices news site will have a special Election Cell, which will share the updates from the filed monitors. In addition to the news, the cell will also work to profile the constituencies and map the latest trends in those constituencies for the developing electoral contest.
Grand Debates: Pak Voices will also feature four grand debates on the various themes in the focused regions of the project namely southern Punjab, Tharparkar and Makran region in Balochistan. The debates would focus on the key issues facing the communities and how those issues can be addressed in the elections. Political parties manifestos will be vetted thoroughly to understand their relevance to the challenges and issues in the country.
Minorities and Elections: Pak Voices will continue to focus on the plight of the minority community and how it can be mitigated in the context of elections. The stories of marginalized communities in the context of elections will feature on the Pak Voices.
I You We will help to minimize election violence and ensure participation of progressive and minority populations.