In the objective of tapping the collective knowledge and actions of the ICT community for the monitoring of the 2010 automated elections, the Computer Professionals’ Union (CPU) will be organizing a National Conference on Citizen Electoral Monitoring this Saturday, April 24 from 1:00-5:00PM at the University Hotel in UP Diliman.

“We aim to update the ICT sector with the current situation of the 2010 automated elections,” said Mr. Rick Bahague, national coordinator of CPU. “We will also showcase different ICT initiatives being implemented to aid voters and monitor the elections.”

To be featured in the conference are election-monitoring tools such as the CPU’s Vote Report PH, a web-based GIS for election day incident reports, and Google Philippines’ precinct mapper which voters can use to locate their polling centers on the Google maps web application.

These tools will be utilized by a nation-wide network of pollwatchers, and is open for use and collaboration to interested individuals and organizations.

“We have also invited different citizen journalism and alternative media efforts such as Blogwatch.ph and 100araw.com to share about their projects,” added Mr. Bahague.

“From this, we aim to form a citizen journalism network that will work together for a comprehensive coverage of Election Day that is integrated with pollwatchers on the field,” said Mr. Bahague.

The conference is part of Project 30-30, a multi-stage research, education and election monitoring project implemented by Center for People Empowerment in Governance and its partners. The project is funded by the European Union.
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