Vhota Project - Election Data Platform

Vhota is a project by Povo News to build a social data platform that offers global election and public datasets in granular, analyzable, user-friendly, and searchable formats.

This initiative evolved from the African Elections Database Project, where we documented post-independence election results from Africa through 54 research articles.

We have developed a functional prototype of Vhota; however, ongoing development has slowed due to funding constraints.

Problem statement: Why the world needs Vhota

Global election data is fragmented with no centralized platform providing comprehensive information on election results, public officials, government institutions, and the allocation of state funding.

Solution – What Vhota offers

Vhota is a free and open-source election data platform that offers real-time information about elections, public officials, and government institutions.

The platform has a feed that showcases visually appealing and data-rich profiles, free of user-generated content.

Here is an overview of the main features of Vhota:

World election results: Comprehensive data on presidential, legislative, and local elections
Real-time vote tabulation: Decentralised data collection, tallying, verification, and publication of election results from polling stations
People profiles: Information on election candidates and public officials
Organization profiles: Details on state-owned companies, legislatures, political parties, executive cabinets, courts, local municipalities, government departments, and agencies.
Country information database: Socio-economic indicators and related data
Election promise tracker: Tracking commitments made by public officials over time
Public finance tracking: Insights into how public funds are spent by governments, public institutions, state agencies, and political parties
Offline access: Local storage functionality to support communities with slow, unstable, or restricted internet access
Secure collaboration: Encrypted communication, location sharing, real-time alerts, and automated emergency protocols for users.
Anonymous tip submission: Users can submit information and get updates using a unique code without revealing their identity.
AI Chatbot: A personalized chatbot trained on all Vhota datasets.

Vhota user interface

The Vhota user interface is designed to offer users a visually appealing platform that enables smooth navigation through granular and analyzable election information.

Below we will go through 13 designs of the Vhota platform, detailing the information that is collected and offering views of why this information is important to citizens, journalists, researchers, political actors, and industry.