May
Elections need technology revolution
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I voted yesterday and it was a great feeling. It actually felt like probably the only moment when the politicians are at your mercy rather than vice-versa (now I also know how do professors feel while checking student papers). Armed with my voter ID card and a slip which stated some details, I went to the polling booth. It was quite hot and there was no queue. In almost no time I was able to find my name in the voters list and was able to cast my vote. Pressing the button I felt great! I am a part of the election revolution!
But the story is quite different in the rest of the country. In Phase 4 the voter turnout was just 57% and still it was considered good because at other places it was much lower. If this is not enough read this post on Jyoti’s blog where inspite of having a Voter ID card they were unable to vote. To me the situation seems quite horrific when people who want to vote are unable to vote. In India people are constantly moving homes because of job switches and cities like Bangalore / Mumbai / Delhi are full of such people. These people are mostly unable to vote as they are not in their home constituency during elections! To add to this a good number of people who want to vote every elections are denied this privilege because of some error in issuing voter ID card or the voter list at the polling booth.
It seems strange to me that a country with some of the world’s best IT companies, with one of the first fully electronic stock exchanges, with an ever growing mobile phone userbase, and tech savvy generation is still managing the most important public issue with such a dismal strategy. A government elected by less than 50% of voters can’t really be considered worthy.
What I am trying to propose is not very different from the current system. It just requires a computer and an internet connection at every polling booth (which can be a little difficult but I am sure the election commission can spend atleast this much to ensure a fairer elections). Every Voter ID card already has a unique number identified with it or associate one if need be. The person should be able to go to any voting booth in the country, show his/her voting card (or maybe just give the voter registration number) and be able to vote.
Through this strategy people will atleast be able to vote! Even those citizens who are currently not in their hometown will be able to take part in the election process. The ink stain on the finger should prevent multiple voting and the IT system should also prevent such errors. Overall designing and implementing such a system should not be very tough for an organization like Infosys, TCS, Wipro which manage billions of dollars for banking companies through all their transactions. Hoping to see a much better voting system implemented in the next 5 years.
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21 Responses to “Elections need technology revolution”
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There are multiple problems in using any form of sophisticated technology to solve the election issue. See the case with US – Diabold or otherwise.
I have always felt that the way India has gone with the simple voting machine is far more superior than the way US is doing it, for example.
What we need is an improvement of the voter lists, and not the way actual voting is done.
@ Hrishikesh
But that still does not solve the issue of how will people vote when they are not in their hometown?
Great insight! I loved it!
It really reflects what I personally have been thinking about this process too. I voted for the first time this year, and honestly, there were a few places I could see improvements taking place, one of which is this.
Keep ‘em coming.
I don’t think just voting is enough. Thats just a tiny step. We need to consider our leaders and politicians as employees. We, the people of our country, have employed them. We need a process where our leaders should document what they are gonna do in their tenure and we should be able to track and verify the progress on each of their promises/tasks. We need a performance review process every year or so, to check the progress. Otherwise, i don’t see a point in just voting and getting my fav leader onboard “hoping” he will do something. if he doesn’t, he should be out. We also need to make and project politics as a well paid, clean, attractive career option for the youth. As long as the leaders do a decent job, they enjoy the perks, otherwise out they go, just like any employee in any company.
Excellent post! Today, we were discussing low voter turnout in Mumbai… Those in Mumbai did not want to vote, those from outside Mumbai could not vote –> net result turnout of 44% Somehow this needs to be reversed!
A very ethical proposition and anyone professing a fair and inclusive election process would be in agreement with it. Interestingly though, our country is full of paradoxes with portrayal of the best of IT heads working on outsourced processes on one hand, and regressive and dynastic political system thriving on the other. Agreed that transparency and participation are an absolute must for the process to actually work for us.
Thanks for the link to my post.
@Purnoor, Thanks for the comment and thanks for including us in your blogroll.
@Manoj, You are definitely right, we need better leaders. But we can get there by ensuring better participation so that they can be thrown out easily.
@siddhesh, Thanks for the comment.
@Jyoti, We need the best (IT heads) to start working on the problems of our own country. Making elections better is a start. I liked your entry. Keep them coming.
Maximus, nice post. Be it CAT, or elections, there’s no doubt that there needs to be a transformation in the use of IT. And it is only when the change comes as a foundation (and not specifically for Elections or CAT) that it would turn out to be effective in my opinion.
Further – there’s a simple reason why the IT heads do not spend their time with the Indian government – they get a far bigger revenue figure from foreign clients (unimaginably higher). Also, I would be greatly disrespecting those top leaders like NRN by just saying it’s about money. It’s also got to do with the fact that for something like this the companies will have to work with the lethargic government. And that’s seriously a huge issue.
@ Atul
But that makes it even more sense for any IT company to work with the government. When top consulting firms like BCG and McKinsey can work with the government then surely IT companies can work on implementing a a good solution for elections. Even it is without money, the number of people on bench can be reduced and government can be helped at the same time.
A commendable idea,I should say….Nice post…But such a minimal percentage of voter turnout can hardly be accounted by the ‘not being present in the city’ issues.Still miles to go to make the janta aware of the pertinence related to elections.People just don’t want to venture out of their homes to vote and I’d rather blame their trifled mind for it….It’s great to keep coming out with innovative technological inclusions in the existing system but that wouldn’t really yield a major breakthrough in turnout proportions,I guess.
How about starting a group or poll on strat.in about writing a petition to Election commissioner about modernizing election process? We can contribute to this cause I think.
Thanks for article. Everytime like to read you.
Thanks
@ Dirnov
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This has been a proposition that has been doing the rounds amongst the younger populace, cocktail parties and discussions (read friendly banter) on English News Channels.
The argument invariably put forward is that people can’t vote when they are out of town. In fact, a “logical” explanation of 44% turnout in South Mumbai has been this.
However, there are several pitfalls.
1. It is not difficult to manipulate the best of technologies. Even if they aren’t, there would always be doubts about the fairness of the results.
2. The technoilogical divide in our country is beyond imagination of these “cocktail-wallahs”. Just because they have an internet connection infront of them, they tend to forget the basic fact that in 30% of our country, there is hardly any electricity, leave alone computers and internet.
3. People who constantly shift cities – there was an interesting statistic about them sometime ago when someone raised this issue in 2006 Assembly elections in Bengal. The pretty comprehensive survey by AC Nielsen showed that such population constitutes not more than 7% of the voting population. True, they should not be denied their voting rights, and hence – a mobile system of voting can be introduced.
Lemme explain – in a mobile system of voting, a person who shifts base should get a document signed by the local authorities from and to the place where he/she shifts – this document should be a proof that the concerned person has shifted and hence be allowed to vote.
Also, coming to the point of goof-ups in electoral rolls. In a country of 70 Million eligible voters – I still believe the EC is not doing a very bad job of keeping down that list about 5000. About people who shout about the fact that their names were not on electoral rolls after they had stood for 3 hours in the sun to vote, there are umpteen means to check (in this age of technology, as my dear friend the author mentioned) whether his/ her name is in the voter rolls or not.
About low voter turnouts in rets of country (South Mumbai be left alone – those are candlelight marches junta, they do’t even turn up to vote for an investment banker), there are active suggestiions from many quarters to have the elections sometime in September / October next time around and hopefully, then we can see higher voter turnouts
About the comment made by Manoj, just that situation exists in one particular state in India – want to know where?
the state where the CM considers himself to be the CEO of a company, himself accountable to the masses and his juniors – and the CM is “maut ka Saudagar”, “communal”, “hindutva poster-boy” Narendra Modi
surprised?
the biased media won’t ever twll you this
@Kaushik
Very well written arguments Kaushik. I agree that people hopping through cities will be just around 7% but as a lot of people I know have moved from Delhi to Mumbai or Bangalore. They people are also unable to vote. Also a fellow blogger said how they could not vote even after having a Voter ID card. Although such cases are not reported but I am sure they will form a large chunk. Agreed anything with technology lacks a bit of credibility in India, but then I don’t even trust the electronic voting machines fully.
The whole argument is that 50% voting is not sufficient to chose a government, and a country which can provide software solutions for every other country in this world should do something for itself!
I am a bit amused when spoken about net connections etc. With due respect to the author, I think he is not aware of the fact that low voter turnouts are due to a number of factors, which vary locally.
I will take pains to list some of them
1. Naxalite boycotts – many people in Naxal infected areas don’t vote fearing them – these people are the poorest of the poor with almost zero access to Roti, kapda and makan, leave alone electricity. A phenomenon in Bihar, C’Garh, Jharkhand, AP, Orissa.
2. Blinding heat in many places – e.g’ – Purulia and Bankura disticts in Bengal, Sambalpur in Orissa etc – again, nearly 100% of the people in these areas haven’t heard of internet – how will they? they don’t have electricity
3. Threats of poll boycott by separatists in Kashmir – how can the voters access internet there?
4. Due to old age – Jyoti babu, Bal Thakrey the most famous examples. How will internet help them?
5. Female unmarried voters are not allowed to vote by their fathers in some areas – as this might make then “impure”. Will a new technology attract them? (a news article in TTOI a couple of days back regarding this)
Finally coming to the point of not relying on electronic voting machines. When they were first proposed in the 1980s, some political parties had opposed the move citing unfairness in the 1984 elections. Subsequently, they were taken off in the 1989 elections and resorted back to paper based voting.
However, the EC through a rigorous usage of technology managed to prove to all that they cannot be rigged with. As far as internet is concerned, they are exposed to a wide range of people – and with with whizkids breaking even into FBI systems – high chances are that someone can break into election result manipulation too.
I want to ask the fellow blogger who said he could not vote – did he enquire whether his name was on the voter rolls? I know someone who did not, despite having a valid voter card, and got it done. BTW, 7% includes those people who move from Kolkata to Delhi and Mumbai for jobs. As I said – there should be a system that they can get local authorities to have documents signed that they are shifting – in this age of voter awareness, the EC can definitely take a step.
~as a IIMCian would say NOM
@Kaushik
Thanks Kaushik again for your comment. All your points why people don’t vote are valid and maybe what you have told about Electronic Machines is also correct.
I think I should correct the post saying that instead of internet connections, lets have a computer at all polling booths with a database in them of all voter IDs. This will atleast stop the mistake caused by when people who want to vote are not allowed to vote.
If you read the link above to fellow blogger, they went to the polling booth, checked 3 voter id lists, checked even a cd with a election worker and were not allowed to vote because their name was not in the list. Your friend might have got it done but many people did not.
I agree the system you are proposing of getting papers signed at 2 locations might work but will people take so much effort just to vote? Jaago Re was an attempt to make things easy so that more people can get registered as voters. Technology can make it easier so why not use it?
~ No objections taken! Just a discussion going on