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A CNN report examined how the spread of mobile phones was helping push a number of African countries toward fairer, more transparent elections, with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan arguing that instant communication made it far harder for officials to alter vote counts undetected between polling stations and the capital. Experts cited Senegal’s 2006 local elections, where Radio Sud reporters used cellphones to broadcast irregularities live, the 2007 Nigerian election, and Zimbabwe’s disputed 2008 poll, where independent observers used ‘parallel reporting’ of local results to delay and contest a false outcome, while cautioning that technology alone could not guarantee democratic progress.