Pre-Election Observation (PREO)
#WatchingTheVote is a comprehensive observation of the electoral process which includes the observation of the pre-election period environment across all the Local Government Areas to track and report on governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, activities of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), National Orientation Agency (NOA), Political Parties, Security Agencies and the involvement of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in the electoral process as well as tracking and reporting early warning signs for electoral violence.
Election Day : Parallel Vote Tabulation Methodology
For the Election Day observation, Yiaga Africa’s Watching the Vote uses an advanced election day observation methodology called the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT). The PVT is an election day observation methodology that leverages statistics and technology for the observation of the process of voting and counting and tallying of results. Citizen observers are deployed to randomly sampled polling units to collect data on the conduct of elections and official polling unit level results. With the results assembled from the sampled polling units, a citizen observer group can release projected estimates and verify the accuracy of results declared by the election management body. Using this methodology, observer reports are sent via SMS to a central database which enables WTV analyse and share timely findings on the conduct of the election in near real-time.
The PVT allows Yiaga Africa’s WTV to present an accurate and comprehensive assessment of the election day processes, such as whether election officials comply to the guidelines for the conduct of elections, the presence of security agents, the presence and behavior of party agents, secrecy of the ballot and transparency of the counting process. It is the only observation methodology that can independently verify the accuracy of election day result as released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which is the body legally mandated to do so. Accordingly, every observer deployed sends the election results from the polling units as announced on election day.
