The idea of a mobile application for election observers
I will begin, perhaps, with the fact that I, like many others, applied for inclusion in the lists of observers for the upcoming elections, and, if all goes well, I will fulfill this honorable duty on December 4.
To be prepared for anything, I read several brochures, and in almost every one, the authors advise you to make some calculations in your mind / notepad, then to compare them with the data entered in the final protocol. In particular, it is proposed to approximately count the number of voters, as well as to count (at least approximately) the number of votes for a particular party along with the commission (after the ballot box has been opened, ballots are sorted out by commission members, and each vote cast for the party is announced aloud).
I apologize for such a long introduction, but it, I think, will help to understand the essence of the idea. And the idea is simple - to make an application for an observer at the elections, which helps in such calculations. I, unfortunately, do not have enough experience to quickly and accurately write such an application, but maybe someone has enough time, knowledge and initiative to implement the idea?
')
I see the application itself quite simple. It will work in 2 modes. Mode 1 - counting the number of voters, mode 2 - the final vote count.
In this mode, it will be enough for an observer to press the big +1 button every time another bulletin is dropped into the box. If the observer was distracted, did the calculation in his mind to save the battery, or for some reason did not press +1 several times - you can make an additional small ~ + N button, which opens an input field for the approximate number of ballots lowered to the ballot box in the period while the observer was distracted. This number will be summed up separately and then will be displayed next to the total number of voters as unreliable.
Ideally, of course, it would still be useful to allow the user to pre-set the total number of voters eligible to vote at a given polling station in order to show an approximate turnout in real time.
In this mode, the user will see N + 1 buttons on the main screen: N buttons by the number of parties and 1 for invalid ballots.
Just as in the first mode, it will be enough for an observer to press the button with the name of the party for which a vote is given in the bulletin being announced at the moment. And just as in the first mode, it should be possible to add an arbitrary number of votes if the counting is done by the method of preliminary sorting, and then recalculating the number of ballots in each folder.
For a rough indication of the progress of the counting, you can use the first digit (about the number of voters), or the manually set number of voters who have already been determined at this stage in the counting process according to the voter lists.
Accordingly, the user can be displayed as the current percentage distribution of votes, and the percentage of processed ballots.
As ideas for the following versions, let's say - for the election of the President of the Russian Federation - it will be possible to implement other useful functionality:
and so on.
Of course, the main problem will be the high power consumption of the phone. It is unlikely that he will be able to work with the screen on as long as the voting and vote counting takes place. I hope that at the polling station it will be possible to recharge the phone if necessary, but, of course, this can be a problem, especially if there is confrontation with the members of the commission.
The second problem is the obvious illegitimacy of such a calculation. So this, of course, is only a “tool for oneself”, which will only allow one to suspect a falsification, and not to prove it.
I understand perfectly well that there is very little time left before the elections, and I also perfectly realize that “you want something to be done - do it yourself”, but still publish this idea in the sandbox in the hope that there will be an enthusiast who will be able to realize something similar to what I described before December 4, and thereby help several hundred people who are trying to make these elections a little more honest.
PS About the electoral process, the rights of observers and aspects of the counting of votes can be found here .
To be prepared for anything, I read several brochures, and in almost every one, the authors advise you to make some calculations in your mind / notepad, then to compare them with the data entered in the final protocol. In particular, it is proposed to approximately count the number of voters, as well as to count (at least approximately) the number of votes for a particular party along with the commission (after the ballot box has been opened, ballots are sorted out by commission members, and each vote cast for the party is announced aloud).
I apologize for such a long introduction, but it, I think, will help to understand the essence of the idea. And the idea is simple - to make an application for an observer at the elections, which helps in such calculations. I, unfortunately, do not have enough experience to quickly and accurately write such an application, but maybe someone has enough time, knowledge and initiative to implement the idea?
')
I see the application itself quite simple. It will work in 2 modes. Mode 1 - counting the number of voters, mode 2 - the final vote count.
Mode 1 - Voters
In this mode, it will be enough for an observer to press the big +1 button every time another bulletin is dropped into the box. If the observer was distracted, did the calculation in his mind to save the battery, or for some reason did not press +1 several times - you can make an additional small ~ + N button, which opens an input field for the approximate number of ballots lowered to the ballot box in the period while the observer was distracted. This number will be summed up separately and then will be displayed next to the total number of voters as unreliable.
Ideally, of course, it would still be useful to allow the user to pre-set the total number of voters eligible to vote at a given polling station in order to show an approximate turnout in real time.
Mode 2 - Voices
In this mode, the user will see N + 1 buttons on the main screen: N buttons by the number of parties and 1 for invalid ballots.
Just as in the first mode, it will be enough for an observer to press the button with the name of the party for which a vote is given in the bulletin being announced at the moment. And just as in the first mode, it should be possible to add an arbitrary number of votes if the counting is done by the method of preliminary sorting, and then recalculating the number of ballots in each folder.
For a rough indication of the progress of the counting, you can use the first digit (about the number of voters), or the manually set number of voters who have already been determined at this stage in the counting process according to the voter lists.
Accordingly, the user can be displayed as the current percentage distribution of votes, and the percentage of processed ballots.
Extra Delicious
As ideas for the following versions, let's say - for the election of the President of the Russian Federation - it will be possible to implement other useful functionality:
- emergency activation of a voice recorder or camera to fix a violation, with the possible display of the recorded material immediately to the Internet, so that the police would not have time to confiscate the phone along with the records
- periodically sending statistics on the site to a remote server so that you can monitor the turnout in real time and then the counting of votes
- approximation of moments when the observer was distracted - this means the behavior of the ~ + N button, at which the user, after some long inactivity, wants to enter the number of people who voted for him during this period of time, and the program displays a reference value calculated from the average number of people who have already come for the same period of time (that is, if in the last hour, say, every minute an average of 2 people voted, and then the user was not active 15 Inuit, the program will show him the reference number 30)
- verification of data from several observers at the same site - this means processing on the server data from several observers at one site and statistical comparison of these data in order to establish the degree of reliability or fill in the gaps in the calculations
and so on.
Obvious problems
Of course, the main problem will be the high power consumption of the phone. It is unlikely that he will be able to work with the screen on as long as the voting and vote counting takes place. I hope that at the polling station it will be possible to recharge the phone if necessary, but, of course, this can be a problem, especially if there is confrontation with the members of the commission.
The second problem is the obvious illegitimacy of such a calculation. So this, of course, is only a “tool for oneself”, which will only allow one to suspect a falsification, and not to prove it.
Instead of conclusion
I understand perfectly well that there is very little time left before the elections, and I also perfectly realize that “you want something to be done - do it yourself”, but still publish this idea in the sandbox in the hope that there will be an enthusiast who will be able to realize something similar to what I described before December 4, and thereby help several hundred people who are trying to make these elections a little more honest.
PS About the electoral process, the rights of observers and aspects of the counting of votes can be found here .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/133671/
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