CEAE Strengthens Digital Monitoring Capacities Ahead of the 2026 Subnational Elections
La Paz, Bolivia – February 12, 2026
The European Centre for Electoral Support (CEAE/ECES) supported the delivery of a specialized training session on the use of the SentiOne platform, aimed at the monitoring team of Fundación CONSTRUIR, a strategic partner of CEAE within the framework of the Observa Bolivia Mission.
The event was inaugurated by Carolina Floru, CEAE Senior Expert in Electoral Observation and Civil Society, who highlighted the importance of strengthening civil society’s technical capacities to analyze the digital environment and contribute to the integrity of the electoral process.
The training was facilitated by Pablo Mattos, a member of the European Union Election Observation Mission in Colombia, who shared his experience in analyzing the digital electoral ecosystem and in using social listening tools applied to observation processes.
Strengthening Digital Electoral Monitoring
SentiOne is a specialized social listening and digital media monitoring platform that enables the tracking, collection, filtering, and analysis of public mentions on social media, online news portals, blogs, and forums, based on keywords, actors, and advanced queries. This tool was used during the 2025 national elections and will again be employed by Observa Bolivia in the context of the 2026 Subnational Elections.
Within the European Union’s observation methodologies, monitoring the digital environment is a key component for understanding contemporary campaign dynamics, identifying risks related to disinformation, polarization, and online harassment, and contributing to a comprehensive assessment of electoral processes.
Methodological Approach and Good Practices
During the training, key good practices aligned with EU standards were addressed, including: documented definition of queries and monitoring universes; establishment of clear coding criteria to identify disinformation, hate speech, digital political violence, and harassment against women; triangulation between automated tools and human analysis; and the application of a rights-based approach that respects freedom of expression, privacy, and non-discrimination.
The importance of building quantitative evidence—such as conversation volumes, trends, and temporal evolution—was also emphasized as a complement to qualitative analysis.
Training Objectives
The CONSTRUIR monitoring team, composed of ten selected participants, defined the following main objectives:
- To analyze the discourse produced by candidates and political actors on Facebook, X, TikTok, and YouTube.
- To identify patterns of disinformation, hate speech, political violence against women, and the use of artificial intelligence in electoral campaigns.
- To assess narratives that generate greater impact and virality.
- To observe the digital behavior of candidates for governorships and mayoralties in the central axis of the country.
Results-Oriented Approach
During the sessions, the need to work based on clear hypotheses and to orient analysis toward verifiable outputs—especially charts and indicators supporting the findings—was highlighted. Participants also deepened their understanding of keywords, advanced searches, and filters, as well as strategies to move from general analysis to the identification of specific phenomena.
A Participatory Experience
The training was characterized by its practical, interactive, and participatory approach, enabling monitors to deepen their technical knowledge and strengthen their analytical capacities for tracking the digital electoral environment.
This activity is made possible thanks to the financial support of the European Union and the Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI), whose commitment to electoral integrity, the prevention of disinformation, and the promotion of transparent and inclusive democratic processes enables the strengthening of technical capacities of Bolivian civil society ahead of the 2026 Subnational Elections.