Afterthoughts of GE13
and what’s next?
I have to admit, a little of me died yesterday and I believe a lot of Malaysians felt the same.
Ever since then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. However, something else grew in me; It’s not hatred but a spark. I am starting to see that it’s growing in a lot of us as well.
We fought hard in an impossible war and caught glimpses of the future that we envisioned. I am really glad that we are finally maturing. The best thing that happened with yesterday’s outcome was exposing the younger generations to election manipulation such as gerrymandering.
“Chinese Tsunami”? I beg to differ. A “Malaysian Tsunami”, more likely. Regrettably, after losing the popular vote, that was the first thing the PM had to say. Hard to believe that this came from the man who had been preaching the 1Malaysia brand.
Most of us are just fighting for a clean and fair election; a country that is free from corruption and a safer country to live in. However, there are some who are trying to incite race-based fear and hatred. I really wish that race-based politics would go away soon.
I do not think now is the time to stop or give up fighting for the rights (rights as a Malaysian, not race-based rights), justice and causes. I hope the spark will be fueled and we will continue this for the next 5 years to come.
Here are some of the things I believe we should do to help people make a more informed decision in the next election.
Disclaimer: Since I come from a tech background, my suggestions will be tech biased. My goal here is just to lay down possible visions and possible/existing solutions to guide the next steps. As these are only thoughts that were brewing in me since yesterday, it is supposed to be rudimentary and idealistic. Please think of it as a brain dump. This post will be updated and edited from time to time.
Awareness and Outreach
There’s actually a huge digital divide among the urban and rural voters. We knew now that the rural voters do not feel the same. It’s high time we create more awareness on the happenings instead of just limiting our outreach via the Internet.
Saw this home building for rural communities project from @khailee’s #PRU14 action plan and I think it’s great. Check out http://epichome.org.
Education
There are a few areas where more education is needed.
* Unregistered voters
* Young/soon-to-be voters
* PACABA training and refresher course
More party-neutral content needs to be created to inform voters on their responsibilities, walkthroughs, and also not forgetting, how to hold the fort as a PACABA.
Responsible Sharing
Plenty of false information was being shared during this election over social media.
I do not think there’s any tech solution for this. We should exercise judgment before clicking the Share button. Read the comments and do a simple fact check to avoid being taken over by your knee-jerk reaction. It’s also important to call out fake information so that people can take note.
Accountability
Since plenty of promises have been made, I think it’s high time we hold our leaders accountable. Think of it as the people’s way of making sure our leaders fulfill what they say.
Ideally, this should be a crowd-sourced tracker. The people should be able to keep track of all the promises made as well as the fulfillment progress by both the governing and opposition parties. It should also contain a scoring mechanism for the quality of work done and a progress bar to show the progress. At any point of time, you can see clearly a status report displaying the track records of the individual leaders.
Pipedream
a) Data and Analytics
It’s important to look towards the use of data and analytics in the next election. Number crunchers, it’s time to help the opposition understand their strengths and weaknesses and to identify opportunities and threats. Data acqusition and data analytics will be crucial for winning the campaign in 5 years to come.
At the very least, we should have a dashboard on mobile where the PACABAs just need to insert the count figures and it will tabulate the results of each saluran and display graphically the results instantaneously.
From reading the account of polling agent Johann Sze of Nurul Izzah at Lembah Pantai, it seems to me that things are still done pretty manually.
After recounting it twice, we were quite happy as with that results, Nurul has unofficially won, provided my maths has not failed me and that the figures given to me were accurate. With a constituency of more than 70,000 ppl, winning by 1800+ votes is quite small. I remember thinking to myself, how much crap i will be in if my calculations were wrong.
Ideally, it should also alert irregularities based on metrics, patterns, and on-the-ground sentiments. Other than data analytics, predictive analytics will also be worth looking into.
b) Centralized Database or CRM alike
I hope this has been implemented. Having a centralized database to keep track of not just the demographic information of the voters but also other information such as traits, likes, influence, connections/networks, etc. This was a crucial component of the Obama campaign. They were able to even match volunteers based on similar life stories/experiences and it had brought them great success.
c) Crowdfunding platform
Hopefully this will help the opposition campaign or NGO causes. Obama implemented this in his campaign and US$500m were raised online. I list this under pipe dream because the landscape of online payment in Malaysia is tightly regulated.
d) Fact Checker
It would also be cool if a neutral fact check can be implemented to sift through the facts or lies that a political leader is stating. This will help voters make much more informed decisions. Something like the ‘Truth-O-Meter’ during the US Presidential campaign to see which are lies and which are facts. Verified evidence and statements are compiled and listed.
e) Sentiment Analysis
Micro-listening or the studying of habits/traits/sentiments of voters will be key to understand how to reach out and target them properly. Hopefully, 4 years down the road, the rural population will be connected and data collection can be done via technology. This will be a tough challenge if we can only depend on ground staff and manual data collection. In any case, both ways need to be made available to allow for a holistic understanding on the sentiments of the people.
So, what’s next?
If you are a tech enthusiast and you would like to do something about our country, please consider one of the ideas above.
Here’s my call to all developers, designers, UI/UX persons, analysts, content curators/creators, video makers, photographers, social media influencers, editors, contributors, care to join me in this reformation of our country?
Footnote:
Did a search, there are already some websites with good information. Check them out at
https://www.facebook.com/VYCMalaysia
https://network.tindakmalaysia.com
http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/forumdisplay.php/113-PACABA-Polling-Agent
My junior in NUS - Eng Aun did a good set of analysis on the GE13 results with facts and figures. Go see it to learn more
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151461361253802.1073741825.557773801&type=1
