WATCH.ELECT = WE
SEE.OBSERVE.SHARE
Watch.Elect (WE)
Who are we?
WE is a non-profit company based in South Africa. WE works on election monitoring and observation, from the premise that everyone is an election observer because everyone cares about the country they live in. If you’re able to vote, you are able to observe because you care about the future of your country. WE brings together years of experience onto digital platforms using technology to cover the most expansive network of observers in the country.
Watch.Elect WE: Our goal
The goal of WE is to serve as an technological intermediary over heightened electoral periods by mobilising citizens to report on electoral related matters in communities and their immediate surroundings in the 6-12 months on either side of a national election. Our goal is to gather as much data about the contexts around elections, pulling together information that gives us the most expansive insights into election related issues: conflict and violence, political party relations, regime changes and consistencies, and the integrity of the electoral process. In ‘non’ election times it continuous to mobilise citizens on digital platforms to monitor the democratic institutions and performance of the state on matters that impact on the lives of citizens. The platform during these times may become more focused on specific citizen matters and WE is the hub where the citizens See, Observe, Share (SOS) is deposited, analysed and further distributed through different means.
What WE do:
1. SEE
Multiple educational media options through media campaigns as well as what we call ‘ordinary comms’ in the form of a WhatsApp message and/or a voice note while driving or on a taxi to raise citizen awareness and to ACT by monitoring and reporting.
2. OBSERVE
It builds and educates an electorate in ways that have not been done before through everyday forms of communication: social media, local engagements. WE builds trust in African democracy and evolved methods and practices of being part of just nations. WE strives to build confidence in each and every citizen’s awareness of themselves as active agents asking of then to observe their elections and their cities.
3. SHARE
Through close monitoring and collection of multiple data sets according to themes around elections and conflict related to elections, WE offers research packages and outputs in multiple formats.
WE also offers:
- An e-publication called ‘The Weekly Alternative"‘: This is a weekly news monitoring publication that highlights key concerns related to the election. This short 1-2 page offering will be shared via social media, WhatsApp and as an e-newsletter/ e-zine.
- Monthly electionDossier
- Monthly and quarterly think-tank discussions and focus group engagements with the view to mobilise and promote active citizenship, identify hotspots, and strengthen a movement for healthy accountable democracy.
- In person and online observer development and training.
- Research data available for extended research and development in this space.
South Africa:
Elections 2024
‘Watch Elect’ is a citizen movement with a difference that is in partnership with different civil society groups including a national observer mission, as well as conflict management organisations. The mass based SA-DEN civil society group covers the entire country with observers in selected areas and then there are others who are mobilizing citizens to monitor, observe., track, report, and provide a platform for ordinary citizens to be heard and ‘visibly’ partake to shield electoral democracy against anti-democratic forces. In 1999 there were many people in the field, in 2009 the voice was also heard and the mobilization focused and so in 2024 with the major shift in technology – WE: “Watch Elect” have shifted to engage the democratic period of elections innovatively and technologically different.
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To get in touch, please email us: watch.elect.we@gmail.com
© 2023 Watch Elect. WE
