The National Democratic Institute’s launch of a dedicated open data catalog around yesterday’s elections in Afghanistan shows how open data is starting to be implicitly integrated into USAID programs operating on the ground abroad. The site provides maps, raw data, KML, and documentation to help users take and integrate the map tiles and data sets into their own applications.

These are all components that NDI is using to help visualize the results from yesterday’s Wolesi Jirga election, scheduled to be released by the Independent Election Commission over the next several weeks. By being open like this, the program:

• Improves data quality by getting more eyes on the data. Every page has a feedback button prominently in the bottom right.
• Increases efficiencies between organizations that are working on the ground. By packaging these components up and releasing them, what otherwise would have just been used by NDI can be used by anyone working on the ground in Afghanistan or analyzing the vote from abroad - allowing NDI’s investment into the site to be leveraged at a larger scale.
• Expands transparency of the democratic process by putting out the raw data.

We are interested to see how effective this open data site will be in getting outside parties to use the data and also to see how it helps us push data out in a more timely manner, which is important with the IEC planning to officially release the result tallies on October 30th. Over the next six weeks we will be working with NDI in a similar fashion to our work around Afghanistan’s presidential election last year and will be using the open site to share data that we are processing.

AfghanistanElectionData.org is built entirely with open source tools on the Drupal framework. (Specifically, we built it using Features, and load the maps with OpenLayers. AJ designed the maps and rendered them using Mapnik with TileMill, and they are all hosted on MapBox.)

If you are interested in integrating these maps, overlays, or data into a site and need help, just email afghanistanelections@ndi.org.