A Distributed Geospatial Information System for Managing Elections: A Case Study of Kenya

The integration of GIS, World Wide Web and basic phones to enable easy access to poll information leading to free and fair elections is hardly used and if used, only at the demarcation level. This leads to perceived elections malpractices leading to mistrust and unacceptable results. This research involved development of a prototype that was used to bring all stake holders together in elections through information sharing. It involved customization of the Distributed Geospatial Information System (DGI) to work with basic phones. The prototype was developed using ArcGIS for Desktop in data consolidation and management, ArcGIS for Server in information dissemination, PostgreSQL as a database and Diafaan gateway as an SMS gateway. The prototype enabled an election official or an observer to send elections results or comments that were plotted on the map in form of graphs and pie charts in real-time. The prototype also enabled the citizens at large and other stake holders to send comments or report elections incidences that were also plotted on the map at the respective polling stations. The research found that all mobile phones owned by Kenyans can effectively be used with DGI applications to enable citizen and stake holder’s participations. The prototype had shortcomings, especially where some polling stations share the first name. There was need to further develop the prototype to allow addition of constituency name followed by ward name then followed by the polling station name. This will lock a given polling station in the correct constituency. Another way will be to use the polling station code.