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Sunday, March 16, 2014

India's Parliament Election 2014

  


Elections for the 16th Lok Sabha elections will be held in nine phases, the highest so far, between April 7 and May 12 and involve an electorate of 81.4 crore, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday March 05,2014


Counting of votes in all the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies will be held on a single day on May 16, Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath announced at a press conference where he was flanked by the other two election commisioners HS Brahma and SNA Zaidi.

Assembly elections will also be held simultaneously in the states of Andhra Pradesh, including Telangana region, Odisha and Sikkim.





India is now in the election mode and the largest democratic exercise in the world is a work in progress.


From the first date of polling April 07,2014  up to the date of counting May 16,2014 the country will see 9 dates of polling -April 7, 9, 10, 12, 17, 24, 30, May 7 and May 12

The largest chunk of 122 Lok Sabha seats will go to polls in 13 states on April 17, the fifth day of poll, while the sixth day will witness polling in 117 seats in 12 states on April 24. The seventh day of polling on April 30 will choose representatives in 89 constituencies spread over nine states and the eighth day on May 7 will cover 64 seats in seven states.
Polling will conclude on the ninth day on May 12 with elections in 41 constituencies in three states.


The actual counting of votes on May 16,2014 of nearly 500 million voters (assuming that 60% of those on voters' list will vote) will miraculously be completed in a single day - thanks to our EVMs.


Results of the electoral exercise will lead to an orderly transfer of power that has been the hallmark of our democracy. 

With almost 10 crore new voters added to the 70 crore plus voters on the rolls for the general election 2009, this becomes undisputedly the largest management exercise in the world. 

Those who had attained the age of 18 as of 1st January in any year would be eligible to enter their names on the list. 

To help eliminate bogus voting even further, every name was now accompanied on the polling list with a photo of the voter.

As many as 580 million voter identity cards were successfully distributed, covering 82 % of the population. 

Secondly, the EC had by 2007, perfected a system of special enrollment of pockets of people who had curiously been left out of the electoral process altogether. 

The EC called this exercise 'Vulnerability Mapping'.

Computers helped detect these areas of exclusion. 

Why did this exclusion take place? 

We found that it was mainly because some communities were being intimidated from exercising their franchise. 

For instance, if the villagers of village A were to walk through villages B and C to cast their vote at a polling booth in village C, our research revealed that they were possibly intimidated by upper castes on the way.
Extra polling station was added literally at the doorstep of village A.
  For the UP assembly election of 2007, the ECI added almost 50,000 such auxiliary polling stations


Special camps will be organised at all polling stations on March 9 for voters to verify, add or modify their details in the electoral list.

Election Commission has decided to distribute photo election slips with polling station details at his/her doorstep, within 3-7 days from the date of the poll.

An estimated 81.4 crore voters will be eligible to vote in the coming elections with 9.71 crore new voters being added to the rolls since the last elections. The electoral rolls are ready after being updated with January 1 as the cut-off date.

A total of 1.1 crore poll personnel, half of security personnel, will be deployed to ensure a free and fair poll.

For the first time in parliamentary polls, a system of paper trail for electronic voting will be introduced in some constituencies on a trial basis. A paper trail would help in avoiding controversies in case of a dispute.
The system, called the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail system (VVPAT), will accompany the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). The set-up will include an EVM and the VVPAT, which will be placed on the voter's table. 


When the voter presses a button on the EVM to select the party he wants to vote for, a small slip bearing the name and symbol of the party will briefly appear for about 10 seconds on the VVPAT system, after which it fall into a secure box, thus maintaining a paper trail of all the votes cast. 




Another first in the Lok Sabha elections will be the introduction of the ' None of the Above' option



For the 2014 Lok Sabha Election,candidates in a parliamentary constituency in bigger states can spend up to Rs.70 lakh on their campaign, up from Rs.40 lakh in 2011. In the 2009 elections, it was Rs.25 lakh.


Largest and Smallest LS Constituencies
 
Newly Eligible Voters(18-19 Years)
 

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