Please note that this is not a GNDEM-sponsored event. GNDEM would like to share this opportunity from Civil Network OPORA and NDI with its members.

The Civil Network OPORA, with support from the National Democratic Institute, is pleased to announce a call for participation in a four-day training program within the ‘Open Election Data & Disinformation’ Academy! The Academy will take place in Warsaw from August 1-4.

The program is tailored for citizen election observation leaders across Europe focused on open electoral data and social media monitoring and the ways they help to reveal manipulation and prevent electoral fraud. The OPORA team and external international experts will guide participants through a series of training sessions focusing on:

  • why open data matters in elections,
  • how to analyze official voting results,
  • how to use election data to propose amendments to improve the country’s legislation (e.g. time of vote counting),
  • how to make a real dataset from Word/PDF documents and later analyze those to understand election process better,
  • what can be done with geographical data except for election violation maps,
  • how to download and analyze data from major social media platforms,
  • how political ads in social media can lead you to the big disinformation networks (and what to do with those).

We are not big fans of long presentations and lectures. Therefore, the participants’ skills will be built up on practical exercises and case studies from different countries with a lot of experience-sharing and hands-on sessions to follow. Participants will also be shown various tools that can be used to collect data, and track and analyze information manipulations online.

After the training course, OPORA will support two participating organizations for another month to design their own advocacy plans with online expert and technical support. The mentorship team will help the selected groups to elaborate their advocacy strategies and focus on the things to be improved in terms of availability and quality of electoral data.

To apply, please fill in the online application form by 6 July 2022.

Technical information: The Academy aims to have 20 participants. Please fill out one application per person, max two representatives per organization are allowed in attendance. Travel, accommodation and meal costs for the selected participants will be fully covered. English will be the working language for the event.

About the organizers:

The Civil Network OPORA is one of the leading non-partisan organizations in Ukraine for public oversight and advocacy in the field of elections, parliamentarism and local self-government as well as for a comprehensive implementation of the open data concept in political affairs. For the last ten years, we’ve implemented 20 campaigns of independent non-partisan observation of all types of elections, including 23 parallel vote tabulations. We’ve also trained 26 thousand long- and short-term observers so that citizens feel more motivated to participate in the democratic processes taking place in their country, and get more engaged in public and political life. Our observation results and analytical efforts manifested themselves in comprehensive electoral reform, including the introduction of open party lists in 2020. We also run educational campaigns for voters and advocate for a more transparent electoral process by analyzing open election data and tracking political ads in social media at every election campaign.

The National Democratic Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization that works in partnership around the world to strengthen and safeguard democratic institutions, processes, norms and values to secure a better quality of life for all. NDI envisions a world where democracy and freedom prevail, with dignity for all.