Presidential elections in 2010 will be the first to actively use the Internet, including social networks and microblogging. It is expected these sites will be the first to report the election results, writes Roman Lebed in his article for BBC.
Exit poll is a sociological survey of voters leaving polling stations, director of the fund “Democratic Initiatives” Ilko Kuchera says. This public organization arranges “Click National Exit Polls” during the Ukrainian elections in 2010.
This year the fund created the page in five popular social networks: Vkontakte, Facebook, Twitter, LJ (Livejournal) and Youtube.
According to Ilko Kuchera, over 10 million people use the Internet in Ukraine. Thus the “Democratic Initiatives” will work for this part of the voters. In particular, at eight o’clock on Sunday evening there will be live exit poll results on YouTube broadcasted.
All of the news about the elections can also be read in social networks and blogging services. A database of voting results on the Internet may appear even earlier than elsewhere. At least that is what they promise in the fund.
“We try to be modern. Exit-polls are conducted for the control of honest counting. Thus Ukrainians can get this information very soon,” – Ilko Kuchera told the BBC.
For faster work, “Democratic Initiatives” signed a contract with the company “Intermediakonsaltyng”, so all interested journalists can get an equal access to the announcements about the exit poll results. Regional TV stations would be able to broadcast it live via satellite, Ilko Kuchera says.
At the same time with all the technical innovations, this year became the first nationwide poll, which was conducted almost exclusively at the expense of Ukrainians. Currently the money “Democratic Initiatives” have would just be enough to work during the first round. Generally speaking, the exit poll expenses are up to $110 000.
This fund appealed to citizens asking to donate money using text messages. But until now, money are mostly coming from presidential candidates. Ilko Kuchera promises the exit polls will be held honestly though.
In addition to that, another NGO “Internews-Ukraine” established a network of Tweeter-reporters. Now it has over 60 participants from many regions of Ukraine. Since January 7th, they post online Twitter news about everything they see and hear about the elections in their regions. As the head of new media department of “Internews-Ukraine” Vitaly Moroz says, they have posted more than 30 000 short messages. They can be found online, or through search engines, with a special label # elect_ua.
The authors of the idea to post election news on Twitter say that this is the Ukraine’s first attempt to systematically apply the opportunities of Twitter to cover the elections.
They also hope that in this way, journalists and people who monitor election will be able to get quick information about the election in the regions. This information, they say, could become the basis for future articles.
Social Media in Ukraine 