The West African State Sierra Leone Elects a new president and members of parliament on August 11. In the polls 500 election observers at polling stations around the country are reporting on any irregularities via SMS with their mobile phones.

In order for large-scale SMS election monitoring to succeed, a number of conditions have to be in place. In Sierra Leone where carriers lack this ability to interconnect, NDI will need to use international numbers in the Netherlands for monitors to text to. The physical set-up in Sierra Leone is accordingly more rudimentary and complicated at the same time: At headquarters, seven mobile phones are tethered to a laptop and observers are texting in to these six international phone numbers.

[thanks to Katrin Verclas for submitting this posting !!]

read more in Texting It in, an article in MobileActiv