Social media monitoring projects are increasingly important to analyze the information environment surrounding an election. To gain a deeper understanding of how online narratives impact the credibility of an election requires a large team to analyze a large amount of data.

As voters around the world continue to get more information through digital platforms, political campaigns are moving increasingly online. Many social media platforms allow campaigns and advertisers to micro-target audiences at scale and with unprecedented specificity. That ability to target audiences can make or break a campaign. However online political ads are less transparent and more difficult to monitor than traditional media advertising. In addition, political advertising tends to be poorly regulated.

The increased presence of electronic technologies in our daily lives has brought considerable and concrete benefits. We can communicate with friends, family and colleagues seamlessly through email, social media or messenger apps, send or receive money on our mobile devices, have access to a wealth of information, and conduct our work more efficiently and with fewer mistakes.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) released today its newest resource “Process and Results Verification for Transparency: A Citizen Election Observer’s Guide” to support systematic election day observation. Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) is a methodology for nonpartisan citizen observers that independently verifies both election day process and results to make the election more transparent for all stakeholders. 

Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) is an election day observation methodology that allows nonpartisan citizen organizations to systematically assess the quality of opening, voting, closing, and counting – as well as official results and, indirectly, the tabulation process –  at a national scale and independently verify official results.