{"57743":{"#nid":"57743","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Carter Center, College of Computing Team Up Again for Election Monitoring","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETesting a mobile phone-based system that promises to improve\nthe efficiency of election monitoring in countries around the globe, a\nthree-person team from the College of Computing accompanied a group from the\n\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cartercenter.org\/homepage.html\u0022\u003ECarter Center\u003C\/a\u003E to monitor the use of electronic voting technology in the\nPhilippines\u2019 May 10 election.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cGeorgia Tech has been active in eDemocracy for several\nyears now,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.scs.gatech.edu\/people\/mike-hunter\u0022\u003EMike Hunter\u003C\/a\u003E, research scientist in the Georgia Tech\nInformation Security Center (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gtisc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGTISC\u003C\/a\u003E), who traveled to Manila with two Tech students\nand the Carter Center team. \u201cThe field is ripe\u2014both for bad guys and for us to\nstep in and establish some best practices.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EOften when monitoring teams are dispatched to observe\nelections, their destination is a nation whose communications infrastructure is\nlimited. Observers typically record their data on paper, then compare notes\nwhen teams reassemble at day\u2019s end. Hunter said researchers in GTISC and\nelsewhere in the College of Computing had been working on a system that would\nenable election observers to use an SMS (text-messaging) network to record,\ntransmit and evaluate their reports in real time to a central computer that\nmerges the data and allows for comprehensive analysis. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EHunter called the \u201cbeta test\u201d of the system a definite\nsuccess.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAcross the world, from developing countries to Manhattan,\nSMS and cellular coverage are becoming ubiquitous,\u201d he said. \u201cNo one had any\nproblems transmitting their data.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThough the May 10 Philippine election, in which offices from\nthe presidency to the national legislature to local positions were decided, was\nfree from these difficulties, Carter Center delegations are regularly sent to\nobserve voting in countries troubled by alleged political corruption, social\nunrest, war\u2014or, too often, all three. The team will talk to election officials\nand develop a checklist of questions or issues for observers to watch.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EBut on election day, circumstances can change quickly.\nObservers may be out of contact and unable to receive new instructions or\ncompare data until they return to base. The SMS-based system (which for this\ntest used several Google Android-based smartphones) directly addresses that\nshortcoming.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWithin 15 minutes of the day starting, I felt like we\naccomplished a lot,\u201d Hunter said, adding that the delegation\u2019s command center\nbegan evaluating incoming data and recommending changes in observation strategy\njust minutes after the polls opened at 7 a.m.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThough the Carter Center was called in specifically to\nobserve the use of electronic voting technology in the Philippines, this was\nmere coincidence. The GTISC system had nothing to do with voting method; it\nserved only to facilitate the observers\u2019 data gathering and analysis, and could\nbe used in any election regardless of the voting method involved.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe greatest benefit to GTISC, Hunter said, was receiving\nsome \u201con the ground\u201d wisdom about how the monitoring system should work. He\nsaid his two students \u201creceived a crash course in dealing with last-minute\nproblems.\u201d Since the monitoring system is designed to support a specific\nobservation plan, when that plan changes, the system needs to change too.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt may seem trivial, but given how helter skelter things\ncan be in an election setting, we need to set up the system so questions can be\nchanged up until the last minute,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cHaving this device in your\nhand, you want to take full advantage of it. It can enable game-day changes to\nobservation plans, especially in rural or remote areas.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EHe also learned that some Philippine election officials\nappeared intimidated by observers interviewing them and recording data on a\ndigital device. \u201cYou can never have enough real-world tests,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe biggest surprise to me was how smoothly the application\nran,\u201d said Karthik Rangarajan, who\u2019s pursuing his master\u2019s in information\nsecurity. \u201cOn the Command Center side, there were no bugs, and that was just\namazing because it was handling a relatively large volume of messages pretty\ncomfortably. I\u0027ve never deployed software I\u0027ve written in the real world, so it\nwas an amazing experience.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSeeing eDemocracy deployed in the streets of Manila drove\nhome the point that in this case, our ostensibly technical project wasn\u0027t\nreally about technology at all,\u201d said Duncan Osborn, who graduated in May with\na bachelor\u2019s in computing engineering. \u201cWe constantly sought the guidance of\nthe Carter Center personnel that would be using our technology in the field.\nWhat makes this project unique is that it was built from the ground up to allow\na person, any person, to use our system. I saw firsthand in the Philippines\nthat approaching human social problems requires human-oriented technology.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Philippine trip is the latest example of partnership\nbetween the College of Computing and the Carter Center. In 2003, then-Dean \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.scs.gatech.edu\/people\/richard-demillo\u0022\u003ERich\nDeMillo\u003C\/a\u003E accompanied a Carter Center team to Venezuela to observe that country\u2019s\npresidential election. And College researchers also have coordinated with\nCarter Center officials to support the Truth \u0026amp; Reconciliation Commission in\nLiberia, which under President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is struggling to emerge\nfrom two decades of bloody civil war. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis partnership was a dream come true for my group,\u201d\nHunter said. \u201cThis was a real world situation, with a real customer\u2014and a\ndemanding customer, which is what you want. The suggestions we got from the\nCarter Center team were invaluable.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs election observers, we are very interested in the role\nof technology on the electoral process,\u201d said Avery Davis-Roberts, assistant\ndirector of the Carter Center\u2019s Democracy Program. \u201cHowever, we have only\nrecently begun to think in more detail about the ways in which technology can\nimpact our own work.\u0026nbsp;The Carter Center\u2019s democracy program has been\nworking with the College of Computing at Georgia Tech to develop practical\ntools for observers that make the most of SMS technology and allow for rapid\ndata aggregation.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis has the potential,\u201d Davis-Roberts continued, \u201cto be a\nreal benefit to observation missions where the quick collection of information\nfrom around the country is an absolute necessity.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA three-person team from the College of Computing accompanied a group from the\nCarter Center to monitor the use of electronic voting technology in the\nPhilippines. \u003Cem\u003ESource: Office of\nCommunications\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27372","created_gmt":"2010-06-02 12:29:28","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:39","author":"Matt Goforth","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-06-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-06-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}