The Quick Count and Election Observation

THE QUICK COUNT AND ELECTION OBSERVATION
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What type of telephones are most useful during a quick count?
The advantage of cell phones is that they reduce the amount of time it takes an
observer to get to a phone. Observers have the phone in hand. Cell phones
are particularly useful where the communications infrastructure is inadequate and
where there are few working or reliable hard line phones available in the immediate
vicinity of the polling station. However, cell phones tend to be expensive,
and they have a limited range. Their effectiveness depends on the terrain and
upon the observers’ proximity to the data collection center. Cell phones are usually
powered by batteries, and the effective battery life of a cell phone can be
very unpredictable.
Solar phones have the same kinds of advantages as cell phones and some of
the same limitations. The key difference is that these phones charge the power
source through solar energy. Constant re-charging of these solar energy-absorbing
batteries reduces the efficiency of the battery. That is a significant consideration
because, in most cases, vote count data are delivered at night, when there is
no opportunity to recharge batteries via solar sources.
Satellite phones are another option. The great advantage of satellite telephones
is that they are the best, and sometimes the only, technological alternative for
getting quick count data very quickly to data collection centers from very remote
areas. Satellite phones work well regardless of terrain and regardless of how
far an observer is from data collection centers. The major drawback of satellite
phones is that they are extremely expensive and sometimes hard to acquire. In
addition, they also rely on batteries as a power source, and in remote areas
these may not be easily re-charged. Observers using satellite phones also require
some special training in the use of the phones.
Radios are often very useful for retrieving data from remote areas. They do not
have the range of satellite phones, but they are much cheaper. The major disadvantage
of radio systems is that they are manpower and equipment intensive.
Observers have to “buddy-up” with a radio operator. The use of radios also
requires a great degree of coordination. Radio operators have to coordinate
transmission times and radio band frequencies with other radio operators who,
in turn, are buddied-up with observation data receivers. Furthermore, radio data
sometimes have to be relayed, after radio transmission, via the regular telephone
system. Radios are much less expensive than satellite phones, but extra steps
are often required to get data to the data collection center, and this is organizationally
burdensome. Further, these data can be difficult to verify because
radio transmissions are usually “one shot” transmissions and observers cannot
be recontacted easily.