Best ideas for presenting elections’ progress and preliminary results have been awarded at In-noVoter

September 16, 2018

Photo: UNDP Moldova

Winners of the first creative laboratory in elections – InnoVoter – were designated today, 16 September 2018. For three days, 30 IT innovation-surfing young people created prototypes for applications to visualize in real-time the 2019 general elections’ progress and preliminary results. The hackathon was organised in the framework of the “Enhancing democracy in Moldova through inclusive and transparent elections” project, implemented by UNDP Moldova with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Embassy in Chisinau through the Good Governance Fund and by the Embassy of Netherlands through Matra Programme.

The creative laboratory’s participants were guided by mentors and worked on their ideas, being assigned to six teams. Then, the panel designated three winning prototypes:

The first award was received by New Deal team, composed of five young developers and designers. “We are so proud that our idea would serve as basis for developing a system to display the elections’ progress and preliminary results, which is going to be accessed by millions of people,” noted Radu Marian, member of the team.

The team of independent candidates got the second place, while five students from Chisinau “Orizont” high school won the third place. They are eleventh grade students who had never voted as they are under eighteen. Nevertheless, the students claim they are interested in the electoral processes.

The winning teams received diplomas, IT products and accessories.

At the next stage, the Central Electoral Commission’s IT Department will review the hackathon’s ideas and will consider them when designing the application for visualizing the 2019 general election’s progress and preliminary results.

“The new system presenting real-time data shall bring more transparency, enhance people’s confidence in the electoral processes and draw their attention to the endeavours made by those 25 thousand electoral officials who work on elections day,” said Alexandru Balmos, Head of CEC’s IT Department.

UNDP has been supporting the Central Elections Commission over the past seven years in developing the electoral IT System, which has delivered real-time data about voters’ participation during elections day in the last three general elections, mentioned Eva Bounegru, UNDP Project Manager: “The current system allows to show the preliminary results of the elections 3 hours after the closure of the polling stations, compared to 24 hours previously needed for the calculation of the preliminary results.”

UNDP organised other similar events where young people designed various prototypes. During 2016-2017, three IT solutions were developed in the field of counter-corruption.

InnoVoter 2018