Millions of Ghanaians voted in a close election last December that returned incumbent President John Dramani to office by a margin of less than 3 percentage points. An independent vote count by a local election monitoring organization that used SMS technology to verify returns from around the country gave many voters the confidence necessary to ensure a peaceful election process—both during the voting and in the days following.

In Liberia, where more than 40 percent of adults are illiterate and where citizens who live outside of the capital, Monrovia, have little or no access to the Internet or television, radio is often the only reliable source of news.  Traditionally, getting news to radio stations involves recording it onto CDs, which then need to be driven to the stations.  This is both expensive and time consuming, and stories are usually out of date by the time they are aired.

A bipartisan group of 21 high-level political experts has come together on behalf of continued U.S. support for democracy around the world.

This article was originally published on the NDItech DemocracyWorks blog.

Addressing the potential of new information and social networking technologies, former Secretary of State and NDI Chairman Madeleine Albright spoke at the Dec. 5 launch of a new initiative aimed at using technology to improve communications between citizens and their government. “Democracy thrives on diversity and becomes stronger through vigorous debate,” she said. “Its very identity is based on the free expression of popular will.”

On the heels of the tech-focused U.S. presidential election, last week’s Tech@State conference brought together government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, private companies, academics and technologists to explore how technology is used in domestic and international elections.