As Egypt prepared for parliamentary elections last month, Partners in Change (PIC), a coalition of 27 grassroots organizations, conducted an innovative voter education and get-out-the-vote campaign.
The "Participation is our Duty" campaign for Egypt's lower house, the People's Assembly, included candidate debates and street theater performances in nine governorates across the country. PIC used techniques similar to those used before Egypt's June elections for the Shoura Council, parliament's upper house. At that time, the coalition drew national attention for conducting Egypt's first ever candidate debate, as well as a voter education program that reached 6,000 voters through town hall meetings. PIC also organized an election day citizen monitoring effort that sent a total of 270 volunteer observers to 27 voting districts across 10 of 29 governorates. They reported their findings live on the coalition's online radio broadcast, which drew 10,000 visitors.
