2. EGYPT VOTES
a tool for lasting democracy
“Social networks have provided a critical outlet for
people’s sentiment and information exchanged
throughout the Arab Spring and technology plays a
pivotal role in monitoring these elections. Our website
built with our strategic partners, gives Egyptian voters
the opportunity to share and discuss their personal
experiences of this historical election online.”
-Ayman Abdellatif, General Manager for Microsoft Egypt
“We believe we can make
context a difference and share our
resources with local teams
The Egyptian revolution started on January 25, 2011. On the so-called to provide a voice on the
“Day of Rage,” Egyptians, inspired by the Tunisian revolution, took to the election results. We are in
streets of Egypt to protest against the precarious living conditions people historical times and we built
in the country were facing. this company to promote
democracy world-wide. To
The ultimate purpose of these protests was to force the resignation of walk on Tahrir Square and
Hosni Mubarak and his regime that had been in power for the previous view people on their mobile
30 years. In only 18 days of protests, the Egyptian people obtained what phones posting comments
they wanted—Mubarak resigned from office on February 11, 2011. and sharing their voice: this
is why ElectionMall® was
After months of internal clashes within the country, Mohamed Hussein created, as technology can
Tantawi, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, called an increase political participation
election, and as a result, was elected president of Egypt on July 21, 2011. via technology.”
This revolution cleared the way for the first legal and legitimate elections
Ravi Singh
of the country. Yet, the country of Egypt suffered 900 fatalities on its way
Founder, CEO of ElectionMall®
to democracy.
1
3. the challenge
After the revolution and the elections, one of the main challenges
Egyptians faced was in keeping the flame of democracy alive.
“Under the provisional Constitution, the new Egyptian People’s Assembly
and Sura Council will be chosen in three separate rounds of voting, each
involving a series of run-offs. It would be complicated even for a mature
democracy, and in addition to confusion, some voters, disappointed by
the results of the first or second-round of voting, have found a healthy
outlet to express their frustration.”1
Because of the fragile democracy and the potential for confusion and
misinformation, CEO Ravi Singh travelled to Cairo to promote “Egypt
Votes.” “Egypt Votes” was an innovative website developed to deliver
insight into the experience of voters, publish election results as they were
announced, along with providing all of the information and facts needed
to track the elections.
the strategy
QUICK FACTS:
“Democracy requires the unrestrained exchange of thoughts and
EGYPT (Arab Republic of)
experiences, but in a closed society like Egypt, opportunities for open
EG - 82,079,636 population
communication by ordinary citizens had been virtually non-existent –
(2011)
which is where “Egypt Votes” came in.”1 A forum needed to be created
where this participation could occur from all citizens. Country Area: 1,001,450 sq km
“As Egyptians took to the polls in the first free elections of their lifetimes, Capital city: Cairo - population
“Egypt Votes” gave them a chance to share their experiences and 7,947,121 (2008)
observations, not just within the gated neighborhoods of their own
Facebook® friends and Twitter® followers, but with the uninformed 21,691,776 Internet users as
millions of Egyptians, worldwide.” of Dec.31, 2011, 26.4% of the
population, per ITU.
Another key point on the strategy was that “over 70% of Egyptian
adults are literate, and 1 in 4 has access to the Internet. The popularity 9,391,580 Facebook® users on
of “Egypt Votes” came as no surprise. After all, Egyptians’ advanced Dec 31/11,11.4% penetration
communications and web involvement played a major role in bringing rate.
about the Tahrir Square Revolution in the first place!”1
1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-pfeifle/arab-spring-version-20_b_1169106.html
2
4. the technology
““Egypt Votes” was launched in conjunction with ElectionMall®, a non- My first time voting was in
partisan political technology company and Microsoft’s® Azure platform March of this year, then the
along with Egyptian news portal Masrawy and MSN® Arabia.” “The parliamentary elections on the
site guides first-time voters to their local polling places, helps them 28th of November. I thought
understand registration requirements and provides immediate posting of long and hard about whom
should represent me in the
official election results.”1
parliament. I finally decided
that this 65-year-old man
A major difficulty within the “Egypt Votes” project was the large
should give his vote to the
population involved. In order to keep track of the process, ElectionMall® young men and women
used special, specific tools to keep track of the website coding. These who gave us this revolution.
tools then assisted the development of all of the applications needed to
build and maintain the website. Since there were multiple elections being Muhammad Hammad (Cairo)
held over the country, scalability was a big concern. When would people
participate? Before, during, or after the election?
“Egypt Votes”
also came with a
multi-lingual tool
that expanded the
website’s content
to reach more
than just Arabic
speakers.
A wonderful experience that
The integration makes you really feels like
of Bing™ Maps a true citizen of Egypt. It
was a key tool. doesn’t matter who wins or
These maps displayed interactive pins of all governorates across the who loses: what’s important is
country and provided a platform for Egyptians to share and view their that the elected officials win
experiences via social networking sites like Facebook® and Twitter® after fair-and-square and that our
posting their ballots to increase and spread involvement.2 Bing™ Maps
votes actually count. This is
also broke down election outcomes governorate by governorate as the
results were released by Egyptian authorities.2 the wonderful outcome of the
revolution.
The most important aspect of “Egypt Votes” was to provide transparency
and accurate, reliable information.2 Because “Egypt Votes” was built Mahmoud al-Huwayty
using Windows Azure from Microsoft®, an open and flexible cloud (Giza)
computing platform, users were able to implement applications quickly.
“Egypt Votes” then had the ability to escalate bandwidth depending on
the number of active users at any moment—providing only the best
experience—no matter how heavy the web traffic.
2
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9029675.htm
3
5. I have a bed-ridden mother
who can only get around on
a wheelchair. She told me she
wanted to go vote. When the
military officers saw her at the
polling station, four of them
came over to carry her up to
the third floor and then bring
her down. I’m very proud to
be Egyptian.
Ahmad Rizq (Damietta)
About ElectionMall®
positive outcomes Technologies
Founded in 1999 ElectionMall.
“Egypt Votes” provided citizens with the tools they needed to share their com is a world wide leader
perspectives on the new democracy and elections in Egypt. It gathered in providing Internet-based
more than 1,400 comments in record timing from all around the world. on non-partisan solutions for
Due to the elections and newfound democracy, Egyptians felt their votes campaigns and electons.
could actually make a difference. A mutual respect was also created for
those who died for their freedom and for those who could finally act on About Masrawy
Masrawy Portal, the first and
it.
largest Egyptian portal, is
currently one of the biggest
““Egypt Votes” has given voters a tool to educate, mobilize and reassure Arab Web sites specializing in
one another. It’s rather like the Internet phenomenon of “crowd- news.
sourcing,” but for voting…While Twitter® and Facebook® gave rise to the
Arab Spring, “Egypt Votes” held the greatest promise for ushering the About MSN® Arabia
Middle East to a period of true and lasting democracy.”1 MSN® Arabia is the first
international bilingual Portal
“Egypt Votes” has been awarded two Web Marketing Association’s 2012 in the Middle East, catering to
Internet Advertising Competition awards for both the “Best Advocacy all Arabic, English and French
speakers, offering premium
Interactive Application” and the “Best Political Interactive Application.”
content and services that
include Windows Live Hotmail®
All in all, “Egypt Votes” was a success. It gave a voice to citizens that and Live Messenger®.
wanted to participate in the political arena of their country towards
another step into democracy. About Microsoft®
Founded in 1975, Microsoft®
(Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the
to visit the website / participate:
worldwide leader in software,
http://arabic.arabia.msn.com/elections/egyptvotes.aspx services and solutions that help
http://www.masrawy.com/elections/egyptvotes/ people and businesses realize
their full potential.
3
http://www.advertisingcompetition.org/iac/winner.asp?eid=8478
4
