Mapping election results: using data in your coverage of Kenyan elections

Maps are a great way to show election results data in an easy-to-understand way. For the Kenyan elections on 9 August 2022, Media Hack Collective (MHC) put together a package to show people how to create maps using Datawrapper - a free mapping tool that's great for beginners.

The map guide is an extension of Africa Data Hub’s free online training course: The Fundamentals of Data Journalism Course. See module five: a beginner's guide to maps.

It not only explains step-by-step how to use Datawrapper, it also shows you where to find the data you need to map Kenya's counties and where to go to find Kenyan election data. 

where to find the data you need to map Kenya's counties and where to go to find Kenyan election data. 

MHC also produced a short explainer on the Kenya elections, which contains an example of how voter turnout data in previous elections can be used to add context to stories. You will find the explainer and the step-by-step map guide here and here.

In the build up to the elections, Odipo Dev collaborated with Open Cities Lab and Africa Uncensored to create the MyCandidate Kenya platform. It allows users to find out who was running for election in a ward simply by typing a location into the search bar. A list of candidates in that ward appear and to find out more, you can tap on a particular candidate's name to gain access to publicly available information on them via a Google Search. The aim of the platform was to help users make more informed decisions when voting in the 2022 Kenyan elections. 

It allows users to find out who was running for election in all wards by simply typing a location into the search bar.

Odipo Dev helped to design the look and the feel of the interface users interact with, and they also produced a user guide for the platform.

Together with Africa Uncensored, Odipo Dev also published informative content about the elections that was shared over social media. The content included this article explaining the election process, another on what countries are Kenyans in diaspora voting from? and one about the number of women aspirants in the 2022 elections. Another spotlight piece by Odipo Dev was on the viability of industrial hemp as a vehicle for economic recovery, as proposed by one of the presidential aspirants, George Wajackoyah.

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