After casting my vote early in the morning yesterday, while I drove around and was doing some shopping, I was curiously trying to spot the ink on those index fingers. My empirical observations told me that less than 50% of people had taken the trouble of visiting a polling booth. Morning newspapers are saying that Bangalore city areas saw only 44% voter turnout, and I am not surprised.
With three cornered (four, if you add BSP) contests everywhere, it is safe to assume that winning candidate will at best get 35-40% of the votes polled. 40% (winning percentage) of 44% (voting percentage) = around 18%. So, the winning candidates can realistically claim to have support of only 18% of Bangalore's citizens.
What a shame. 18% is not even half of what we call majority (50%). They say democracy is the rule of majority and I am wondering how the hell do we call this democracy.
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I hope you like MY government
Dear SB
This note was written by my wife Anjali, in comment on the low voter turn-out.--------------------------
The apathy and low turnout of voters in Bangalore ensured that the winning candidate wins with only about 18% of the total eligible votes. My vote will count for me and at least 4 other voters.
"Decisions are made by those who show up". I hope you like MY government.
- Anjali Agarwal
-----------------------
Regards
Devesh R. Agarwal
Visit my aviation blog at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com
Regards
Devesh
Bangalore Aviation
Enjoy life, destroy FUD
Our Government / Leaders - Our Reflection
"Your leaders would be what you are".
Basically we will get the government what each of us would deserve. We are lethargic, lazy, inefficient, do not have respect for time, disrespect to fellow citizen etc. So the kind of leaders we will get elected will of that reflection only. Otherwise how could one explain that only 44% voted.
There is another saying " In a democracy, a bad government would be made by the people who do not vote".
Syed
75% voters turn out
Thrilling if it happens. There should be a regulations from government that private and public sectors need to help to achieve this. How, The companies, Industries, institutions, govt bodies which employes people, should have some level of involvement to their social cause. Each person who is working in a company should be made aware of their social responsibility other than there professional one. The company can be small, medium, large. The enterprise should give a nonmandate directive to the employees from the management to contribute to these causes. There are many exceptions that can be ignore, but the impact will certainly make a difference.
The political parties also should propogate the need for mandate voting, irrespective to their party.
Rgs,
sxthiru
sxthiru
Lethargy one side Inefficiency adds to it
I have to say there are thousands or lakhs of voters who could not vote when they went to vote and their names were not listed and hence not allowed to vote... my dad was not allowed to vote because his name was not in the list. Infact our tenants who are new had their names but my dad who has lived in that same house for the last 32 years had to come back without voting... - So lethargy one side where people did not vote because they dont care - inefficiency made it bad too... I am hoping atleast all those who could vote voted... please vote - thats the power of democracy.
Voters Shun Elections - At a Cost
"FOR EVIL TO SUCCEED, THE GOOD DO NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN STAY QUIET"
"IF THE GOOD PEOPLE OF KARNATAKA DO NOT WISH TO VOTE BECAUSE THEY THINK THAT BAD PEOPLE WILL COME TO POWER, THEY SHOULD BE PREPARED TO BE RULED BY THE BAD PEOPLE WHO WILL CERTAINLY COME TO POWER"
Finding the real reason is important
The point is that winning candidate will get 18% of total possible popular vote. Now, why exactly was the voter turnout low in Bangalore city, there are two popular theories:
1) Voter's lists were not accurate, many people missed out. Mr Ramesh Ramanathan implies (in ToI today) that inaccuracies might be as high as 60%!
2) Usual urban voter apathy, which many believe was the bigger reason. But this time, it did feel as if there was more than usual excitement for voting. Media added to this feeling. Internet too did, but this new medium is not the best indicator.
It will be worthwhile to find which one is the bigger reason here. If Voter lists are a problem (Mr Mukunda of CAF was quoted today saying that organizations should take up the matter post election) , we better pick a few booths from a few constituencies from Bangalore city region, and do a postmortem.
A city like Bangalore can have sizable floating (inter city moves) as well as mobile (intra city moves) population. Voter lists can be inaccurate if a) EC didn't take enoug pains to prepare exact lists b) Electorate didn't co-operate to tune the lists EC made. It seems likely that #a would be the bigger reason. But then, what resources does EC have to make accurate lists - are they equipped well enough, especially to tackle the cities with considerable floating population?
Missing names in voter lists
Add me to the list of guys (plus family) whose names are not on the voter list. So, as per EC we are non-existant.
After all the hungama about reorganizing the voter lists, one finds that there are more errors and missing names. Is this a conspiracy to deny educated middle class their votes so that the vested interests benefit???
EC should focus on ensuring accuracy of the voter list, rather than coming down on President's rule govt for allowing stalled projects (courtesy corrupt govts putting road blocks) to proceed ahead. I think the EC has to take more responsibility for this fiasco. Also, an alternative to voter ID card and the name being on the list should be found.. why not E-Voting, where the so-called lazy middle and rich class will not miss out.
What is the recourse to citizens for the voter list omissions and errors?
Madhu
Madhu
There is a bigger angle to this
Ramesh Ramanathan of Janaagraha, an NGO found out that there is a case of broken voter's list for BBMP, which is why the voter turn out was reportedly low.
http://www.hinduonnet.com...
In an article on page 4 of 'Times of India', Bangalore Edition, dated May 12th, 2008, Mr Ramanathan explains this further.
His opinion was that the voter list was flawed due to errors of omission and errors of comission. The first error was that there are many names that should be there byt are not and the second was names that should'nt be there becasuse people have either died or moved on, but are still on the list.
These errors are systemic. They happen because of migration into the city and migration within the city. They also happen because there is no link between the city registrar to record deaths etc.
Malleswaram experience
According to Mr N Mukunda of Citizen's Action Forum:
"In Malleswaram, the voting percentage was 62 percent as they had corrected and error free voter's list"
So perhaps the realistic voting percentage of bangalore could have been a bit higher than reported.
Our Knowledge of Democracy
Hi Praja,
During the first phase of elections in Bangalore, shamefully, all we could manage is a meagre 50% turnout.
Now, we got various reasons for not achieving the desired number, ranging from absence of name in the voters list, lack of will to vote, and also faulty voting machines (few cases).
After this elections, the next time we start using the words like democracy, rights and duties, is only few days before the next elections. Till then, its the "raj" of the elected, even with the 18% majority as stated by "silkboard".
Now during the recent elections, my friend, when he was standing in the voter's queue, overheard few funny conversations between the authorities and the voters. An old lady stood in front of the EVM and said "Yaav button otthbekappaaa", (which button should i press), then the person incharge tried to help her and then she finally said "neeve yaavdo ondu otthbidi" (You press some button yourself). In yet another instance a lady wanted to press one more time for her husband who could not turn up. And ironically, my friend himself could not cast his vote because his name was missing in the list and his brother's name appeared twice.
Funny, but true...inspite of all this, is 50% a real achievement or what!!!!!!
Is this really true?
Dear All,
I always believed that in urban areas, the percentage of votes cast doesn't rise above 50%. I believed the same during the recent election and that merely 44% voted.
However, when I got a mail from somebody who claimed that this figure of 44% is incorrect and that such a figure is arrived at because of the mistakes in the voter's list, I got a doubt. Can Praja members think about this issue? That is, this low percentage is false and it is because of faulty voters lists, names of dead people not being struck off the list, people who have migrated to other constituencies don't have the habit of getting their names struck off the list in their earlier constituency etc.
it's far worse
Gautam
The box at the top on the left-hand side lists all the connected blogs. The answers are there. The unprofessional way the voters lists are compiled and maintained presently is the root cause of the malady. Hopefully, Mr Vidyashankar will have them partly, atleast.
Muralidhar Rao