For the people who have been living in Bangalore for more than 4-5 years and didn't even put any effort to get their names registered in voter-list and vote, I have no words for them. They are shameless bunch of people, who have no rights to blame anyone if they dont' get good roads, electricity or any other civic amenities. They just want to think whole of India is theirs but when it comes to responsibility, they happily choose to back-out. I agree that you might not believe in this current Voting system, but understand that most of the youth educated people still don't vote. If you can't vote for somebody, atleast vote against. This will bring some fear in those politicians minds. Still hoping to see some changes in those so-called educated youth's acts and responsiblities towards India.
I wanted to end the post with the above lines, but I chose to write it at the top.
Last few weekends gone busy working with SmartVote and I appreciate hardwark and great effort put in by all the volunteers of SmartVote including me. :-)
All this for you "Namma Bengalooru". When you have some good cause associated with what you do, you like everything what you would have not liked in day-to-day routine, as door-to-door ringing the bell, talking the samething to all of them, tele-calling people etc.
BBMP elections are over, and there are discussions going on the same "Lower Voter Turnout". From last few weeks (weekends), I have been working with SmartVote in their drive to increase the voter-turnout, and encourage citizens to come out and vote, actually not only vote but vote for the right candidate. I as a part of SmartVote team, enjoyed every other work we did to make the whole of koramangala aware of elections, candidates and last but not the least is "To Vote".
This time SmartVote has concentrated on Koramangala (ward# 151) and did every effort to give comfort of Voting. Starting from the data-collection drive by the SmartVote volunteers from last 3-4 months, they did a awesome job of registering around 6k residents of koramangala in database. People have been informed, encouraged to search for their names and if not then get it added. Then a week before the elections, they have organized a candidates-debate in partnership with a independent and honest magazine "Citizen Matters". SmartVote volunteers have called people, texted them about the debates so that citizens can come and listen to their potential candidates. Also, candidates profiled being published and distributed in whole of koramangala. Finally before the Election-day, they setup a call-center to assist voters to find their names in the voter list all around the bangalore. Volunteers have called up all the people in the database in koramangala to remind of the election date and to vote. On the D-Day, Vote-Marshalling being done in koramangala door-to-door to say thanks if they have voted and if not then they are requested to go out and Vote.
In the whole of the process, I really enjoyed doing everything like door-to-door data collection, distributing candidates profile and inviting for debates going door-to-door in koramangala, then tele-calling koramangala citizens to remind them about election-day and requested them to vote. Vote-marshalling was also a good experience with Red FM covering a few bytes out of it.
Overall, people's responses were turned out be very good. Initially whenever we went to a door, they were reluctant to talk to us thinking salesman, and when they heard us fully, some complained us about the faults in voter-list, some said thanks and many others appreciated our effort and a larger percentage assured us that they will vote.
This time, I think its not citizens fault this time, probably the faulty voter list caused lower turnout, due to stale names present and valid names being deleted.
