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The election in Senegal has been contentious with election monitors reporting numerous violations at the polling stations but also noting where the process went well.  A new online system, SeneVote2012, developed by One World, maps incidences and poll reports by the accredited election reporters of the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations for Elections (COSCE). 

According to One World, COSCE, the on-the-ground partner, deployed 500 trained observers reporting on the voting process at 1500 polling stations around the country.  The observers sent data directly from the polling stations via SMS. By the time of this writing there we more than a 1,000 reports, both indicating peaceful conduct at the polls as well as irregularities. COSCE is an independent election monitoring colaition that regularly publishes its findings in order to help strengthen the electoral process. COSCE election monitors are accredited by the Senegalese Election Commission.

SMS-powered election monitoring has been deployed numerous times, most recently in Nigeria where 8,000 trained monitors systematically reported on the conduct and results of the election via SMS.  

What is new here is the close-to real-time mapping of the monitor's reports. 

As One World points out, the COSCE reports and map should not be confussed with citizen reporting:  

OneWorld's mapping system should not be confused with Ushahidi's widely recognized software. Although both systems help monitor elections in order to underpin the democratic process, their users are very different. Ushahidi enables citizens to act as informal monitors, sharing what they have witnessed through their mobile phones, while OneWorld supports trained election monitors who belong to COSCE, a coalition of 11 civil society organisations that have been monitoring Senegalese elections for many years, and then to share their findings with citizens in Senegal and worldwide.

We previously discussed the difference between citizen reporting and systematic election monitoring (both using SMS as reporting vehicle). 

In Sengal there is also an Ushahidi-powered instance of citizens reporting on what they see here. By the time of this writing a the close of the polls there were only 160 reports, a small number. Low numbers of reports has plagued many of the citizen reporting instances in other elections.