Google: How Kenyans Will Monitor Election Results LIVE
The tool will be updated with presidential results as they trickle in from polling stations 5 minutes after they are announced by the IEBC
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Global search engine, Google, will launch a new tool to help Kenyans monitor the results of the August 9 general elections as they emerge from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
In partnership with Reuters, the platform will launch a Live Elections Results One-Box starting from 2 pm on the voting day.
The tool will be updated with presidential results as they trickle in from polling stations 5 minutes after they are announced by the IEBC and will enhance Kenyans’ experience on Google Search.
A woman using her phone. /FILE
The live elections update portal will be broadcasted in English and Kiswahili and will see results posted within 5 minutes after they are announced by IEBC, with a notification to be sent forthwith to every user.
The portal will also display party colours with respect to every candidate’s name and image as well as the total counted vote of every presidential candidate.
Also active during the electioneering period is Google’s Harassment Manager Tool which enables users to detect comments mainly made on Twitter that are most likely to be toxic and mute or block perpetrators of harassment or hide harassing replies to their own tweets.
Kenyans, especially those vulnerable to online abuse such as journalists, activists, and politicians will be able to review tweets based on hashtags, usernames, keywords or dates.
The web app was built by Jigsaw, a unit within Google that explores threats to open societies and builds technology that inspires scalable solutions, in collaboration with Twitter.
To detect potentially harmful comments, it uses Jigsaw’s Perspective API, which uses machine learning to identify “toxic” language. It defines toxicity as language that is rude, disrespectful or likely to make someone leave a conversation.
The tool comes as Google revealed search trends between Sunday, July 3 and Monday, August 1 which showed Kenyans searching trending questions that included ‘when is the Kenya election’, ‘when will the campaign end for the 2022 election’, ‘when are the elections in Kenya’ and ‘who is in charge of a polling station’ respectively.
Others included ‘who will win the 2022 election in Kenya’, ‘how many days to the election in Kenya 2022’, ‘how long after the election is the president sworn in’, ‘when was the 2013 general election held’, ‘why 2017 elections were nullified’ and ‘how long does it take to swear in a new president in Kenya?’
The trends also show that Kenyans went online to monitor political parties and their respective presidential candidates. David Mwaure Waihiga emerged as the leading trending candidate, which means there was a higher spike in searches compared to the others, followed by William Ruto, Raila Odinga and George Wajackoyah.
“This is a critical time in Kenya's democracy and it’s great to see that people are collectively turning to Google Search to help them find answers to their biggest questions about the elections,” Sharon Machira, Google’s Communications and Public Affairs Manager in Kenya said.
Below are the July Search Trends:
Trending questions on the election, past month
- When will the campaign end for the 2022 election?
- When are the elections in Kenya?
- Who is in charge of a polling station?
- When will the campaign start for the 2022 election?
- How many days to the election in Kenya 2022?
- How long after the election is the president sworn in?
- When was the 2013 general election held?
- Why 2017 elections were nullified?
- How long does it take to swear in a new president in Kenya?
Top questions on the election, past month:
- Who will win the 2022 election in Kenya?
- Will Raila win the 2022 election?
- How many days to the election in Kenya?
- When is the election in Kenya?
- Who is likely to be the president of Kenya in 2022
- When will the campaign end for the 2022 election?
- Who is in charge of elections in a polling station in Kenya?
- When will the campaign start for the 2022 election?
- How long after the election is the president sworn in?
- When was the 2013 general election held?
Trending candidates: (Trending searches are the searches that had the highest amount of traffic over a specific period.)
Candidate;
- David Mwaura Waihiga
- William Ruto
- Raila Odinga
- George Wajackoyah
Top Searched Candidates: (If the share of search interest for all candidates totals 100%, this data represents the percentage)
Candidate and Share of search interest
- William Ruto-63%
- Raila Odinga-34%
- George Wajackoyah-2%
- David Mwaura Waihiga- 1%
Political Parties ranked by search interest:
- Agano Party- 48%
- Roots Party-39%
- Azimio la Umoja Party- 9%
- Kenya Kwanza Party-4%
Trending political parties: (Trending searches are the searches that had the highest amount of traffic over a specific period.)
- Agano Party
- Azimio la Umoja Party
- Kenya Kwanza Party
- Roots Party
