Kenyan app Ushahidi monitoring US elections

2 min read Original article ↗

An election mapping platform built by Kenyan developers is being used to track possible voter intimidation and violence in the US election.

A team in Kenya and the US are working on the project, Ushahidi's innovation manager has told the BBC.

The platform, external is being used to collect and verify information which can be shared to affiliated groups for action.

Republican candidate Donald Trump has said he believes the election will be rigged.

Some fear his call for his supporters to monitor the voting process could lead to intimidation.

His opponent, Hillary Clinton, has dismissed the voter fraud allegations.

Millions of Americans are voting to elect a president and leaders in federal and state levels. Other states are also running ballot measures to get the public to vote on local issues.

"The team is currently combing through social media and dealing with messages sent directly to its platform, verifying the content before escalating to the right people," Ushahidi's innovation manager Chris Mukuria told the BBC.

A statement on Ushahidi's website says that it has partnered with several institutions including the Election Protection Committee, "who run one of the largest non-partisan election monitoring organizations in the USA".

"Our honest hope is that all of this is for naught, and that end of the day Tuesday we look at all the reports and that 99.9% of reports say: 'Everything went great!'" Ushahidi's chief operating officer Nathaniel Manning said in a statement.