Do you vote?
We find people complaining about bad governance and irresponsible government officials. We find elected representatives who are not doing their jobs well. We complain about the lack of transparency in the government system and the electoral process. We say that we have lost trust in the Indian democracy and it makes no difference whoever we vote for – everyone is equally corrupt. But, how many of us vote?
This is the gap being addressed by several NGO and individual movements. It has been found that most of the youth in the 18-25 year age group do not have a voter ID, and hence have never exercised their right to vote. It was also found that while there was tremendous enthusiasm amongst this youth to select their representatives, it all fizzled out to the magnitude of the bureaucratic procedure in achieving this goal. To enable these young people to become responsible citizens and exercise their right to vote, Action for Good Governance and Networking for India (AGNI), has decided to set up kiosks at colleges and allow the eligible voters to register with ease. Reports Times of India:
“For these Lok Sabha elections, we decided to take the water to the horse. AGNI will go from one college to another with the required forms and get students to fill them. We will also facilitate the registration of forms at the specific election registration office (ERO),” said Kulkarni, coordinator for Action for Good Governance and Networking for India (AGNI). She felt youngsters are charged up after Barack Obama’s win and want to ensure their chosen leaders to rise above petty politics and work for the development of the country.
Another NGO Swabhiman has also been taking similar steps to get the youth enlisted:
“We found that most collegians in the 18-25 age group didn’t have their names on the voters’ list, had no clue about the documents needed and didn’t know how to vote. We wanted them to snap out of the habit of cribbing about politicians and enforce their voting rights instead,” said Nitin Varayanan of Swabhiman, which has got 15,000 youngsters enlisted till date. The organisation recently launched a “One Youth One Vote” campaign across Maharashtra with a target of enlisting 1 lakh voters.
Those interested can either log onto their website or send an SMS, “OYOV”, to 55454 and volunteers will guide them on what to do.
Most people must be familiar with the “JaaGo Re! One Billion Votes” movement, which has been making a splash on television and radio channels as well. Their campaign involves an online voter registration module wherein people can print the form and get directions on what to do.
Founder Surendra Shrivastava said youngsters could fill the form online. “A printout of the completed form comes with an instruction sheet and a map of the ERO’s office. There is a facility on the website where one would get constant reminders through emails and SMSes. Even reasons for rejection of forms are stated,” he said.
If you haven’t registered yourself already, do so now! Until then, stop complaining about politicians you have not elected.
Read the complete article here.
For more information on JaaGo Re and to get yourself enlisted, visit their website: http://www.jaagore.com
Photo Credit: PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images obtained from www.andhravoters.com
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November 27th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I like the idea of increasing voter turnout, and indeed, love the fact that in Brazil, they have mandatory voting for all citizens.
However, given the rock-versus-hard-place choices that we are routinely presented with, what use is there in voting if there isn’t an option of a “none-of-the-above” vote? Any thoughts on that?
Thanks,
Animesh
P.S. Brazil has a form of none-of-the-above vote.
November 28th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
@Animesh – Perhaps making anything mandatory goes against that ‘democratic’ nature of our constitution. However,I do share your opinion that there should be ‘none of the above’ option in the voting card.
Sometime back we had heard of a section 49-O of the constitution that granted citizens the right to go to the polling booth and convey the message that he/she does not want to vote for any of the candidates. In addition, it stipulated that if the “49-O” votes were more than the winning number of votes, then the election could be declared null and void, and the current candidates disqualified. However, as it turns out, that was most probably wishful thinking/email hoax as the validity of such a section has not been confirmed.
I believe the need of the hour is two-fold – (A) To simplify the registration and voting process and enlist more youth in the movement to bring about a revolution in the way the country is run, and (B) To make the electoral process more transparent, and encourage debate and participation between the representatives and the public in setting and following of the agenda.
Thanks,
Anuradha
November 29th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Hi Anuradha,
Definitely agree that democracy is best implemented when people choose to do so. However, aside from the lack of options, what is point if a lot of voting is forced – either through carrot or stick?
It’s definitely a suboptimal high stand that the “educated elite” take about not voting. However, the reality is that majority of the potential voting public is either uneducated or gullible by use of said force or both.
Unless there is a major overhaul of the system (and as a democracy I believe the constitution gives the people the right to wrest governance from political power but how many are aware of that or have any motivation?) which is highly unlikely as that would be very disadvatageous to current political power, what is the point of increasing turnouts??
November 30th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I never understood the need for the “none-of-the-above” option. In practice, how does it help really? You do need someone to represent you, isn’t it?
I have a simple answer to such dilemmas when I vote. I generally vote for the party which is likely to cause the least damage to the country.
This time Arjun Singh has made my decision more difficult though. Today the choices I have in front of me are – country divided by caste vs country divided by religion vs country divided by caste.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:36 am
@ Asha:
I agree with you that a majority of the voting in the current system is forced and hence not really representative of a democratic setup. However, this just strengthens my conviction that more people, and especially the ‘educated elite’ need to be included in the system in order to make the results more relevant.
We also hope the increase of this class in the electoral roles will bring about improvements in the system, as they would be more in a position to understand the faults and influence change.
@Sandip:
The none-of-the-above option just seeks to register your dissatisfaction with the quality of candidates presently standing for elections.
If there was a properly implemented function like this, it would give voters a chance to reject the candidates they didn’t deem fit to represent them, and bring in a fresh round of candidates, which would hopefully be an improvement on the last lot, or the process could be repeated.
This is of course wishful thinking at present. If we are going down this route, it would be even more idealistic to think we should have debates on all issues that matter to the constituency between all the potential candidates, before the public chooses who should contest the elections. We must think along these lines and try to make the entire electoral process more inclusive and interactive, with the community playing a vital role.