Electoral rolls - response from Manivannan

Dear Friends,

Now that the posts on ‘Electoral Roll’ appear to have concluded, it’s time to respond to the issues raised. Many of the issues raised such as ‘bad system’, ‘where the buck stops?’, ‘dedicated official is an oxymoron’ etc are generic and serious in nature; let’s examine the issues with facts and figures.

Facts are important because, such a forum, having committed citizens who have time and energy to contribute positively to the state, must be exposed to facts and not subsist on the assumptions, however enticing they may be!

The below mentioned 5 points seem to the essence of the issues raised.

1. Why is there no specialized department for taking care of electoral roll-huge database (‘why no Geology teacher’)?
2. Is the system so bad (‘designed by a bunch of incompetent nincompoops’)?
3. Quantum of mistakes – does it matter?
4. Is apathy from the Government responsible?
5. Are Government officials really hard pressed for time? Are they dedicated?

...

1. This is a larger question coming under the purview of ECI. But,  had I been in ECI, I won’t propose a separate department, for the below mentioned  reasons:
   1. a.Ideally, the data needs to be collected and managed by a department which has the primary access to such data. They are the Municipalities and District administration. A new department will have to either collect data directly, leading to multiplicity or depend on these departments. Either way, it makes less sense.
   2. b.It is not economical to create a new department only for Election database, when it can be done to ‘reasonable’ accuracy by the existing departments.
2. Now one may ask, ‘Then why the talk about geography teacher teaching geology?’, and ‘what is that ‘reasonable accuracy?’ What was intended in the post was, to inform that, the department currently lacks the expertise on data management, and inputs need to be given. (Can’t we enable the geography teacher to teach Geology fairly well?) ECI has started doing it.
3. ‘Reasonable accuracy’ also brings the other point, ‘whether the error is small of big?’ While we agree that every vote counts, and it is precious, does it mean that there HAS to be 100% accuracy at ANY cost? If only 100% accuracy matters, then why concepts of ‘error margin’ and ‘6 sigma’?
4. While the max error in the urban area is 0.18%, it is 0.0007% for the whole district of Mysore. (Of course, 0.18% is totally unacceptable and will be improved immediately). And I have not found anybody trying to ‘shamelessly sweep it under the carpet’!
5. In a democracy, the system/Government is as good as the people.  Government officials don’t come from Mars! Aren’t they our friends and relatives? They may not be technically most competent, as the best and bright normally choose private sector, and are not ready to toil in the government.
6. But, still there are people, who sweat it out in the government. During the elections, in the District of Mysore, 12,000 government officials left their home at 4 am in the morning, traveled 120 kms, halted in a class room, and woke up at 5 am, worked through the day, till mid night, reached their home at 3 am.
7. Similarly, another 1000 staff at HQ worked for 36 hrs without sleep, to ensure that the poll process is carried out smoothly, and EVMs are safely sealed and stored. Is ‘dedicated officials’ really an oxymoron?
8. The presence of apathy among many of the officials was never denied. Is that because the public have failed to bring it as a priority issue? There has been lukewarm response from the Political parties for appointing Booth level Agents (BLAs). To talk about the citizens, let’s look at the graph below. It depicts the number of citizen who approached the VFC (KR constituency) over past 2 months. (The zero points denote the holidays)
   
   
   This was after 16 media briefings, announcement thru auto rickshaws etc. Was the apathy monopoly of the government officials only?
9. We are ready to get rid of our apathy. But, it will work well only if the other two stake holders, Political parties and citizens join hands. After all, in the democracy, government’s priorities are set by the people (Amratya Sen.)
10. Next is the assumption that deletions affected the voting percentage.  Here we have the NR constituency, where large scale deletions were alleged. Kindly look at the graph. The red line represents the deletions in polling booths in the descending order, starting from the highest deletion. The blue line is polling percentage, which runs almost straight. Now, where is the connection?!
    
11. I can go on and on. My sincere request is that, we should have a dispassionate approach to solving the problem, and not trapped by our baggage. It’s a great start to have a community of committed citizens. If we both work together, there is nothing that we can’t improve.
12. We will meet; first with a ‘core group’ to understand the issue, discuss it threadbare, and come with a time bound ‘draft action plan’ and another, a general council of citizens, which will approve the Action Plan. I suggest that the first meeting can be held on 30th May and the second on 6th June 2009(both on Saturdays). Who among you will volunteer to co-ordinate?

Warm regards,
Manivannan, P