World's greatest festival of democracy!
World's greatest festival of democracy!
India goes to polls between April and May with a mind-boggling 970 Million going to vote. We don't often give credit to this ginormous exercise.
This year 970 MILLION voters (YES! 970 million voters) will vote in Indian General elections. That is 2X the population of Europe and 3X the population of the US.
A Herculean task!
The general election of 2024 will involve 15 million officers, use 1 million voting stations, and be held over 7 days and 1.5 months.
It will involve all forms of transportation, including people physically carrying voting machines on their person, boats, cars, buses, and helicopters. In certain places, even elephants and camels will be pressed into service.
Election officials will traverse super-crowded cities to dense jungles, deserts, Himalayan mountains, rivers and also the ocean (to reach our islands).
Voter information will be in more than 40 languages with every booth carrying instructions in at least 3 languages.
In India, you need to have an election booth within 2km of your place of residence. So they have to set up a booth with all the paraphernalia for that one person who lives in the remote part of Gir forest - Guru Darshandas. Even after he casts his vote, the officers cannot leave the booth as law requires that the booth be open from morning 8AM to 6PM.
The counting, however, will happen in just 1 day, i.e. on June 4, 2024 thanks to electronic voting machines. The Indian electronic voting machines are quite different from the ones used in the US and other places. If you want to know the difference in the election processes you can check out my previous post below.
But this is half the job…
Many forget that before the election, there is an equally massive exercise to prepare the voter lists and check and cross-check the details across the country to account for movement and transfers.
Those 15 million officials involved in the election process are trained and tested.
Arrangements are made for locating all the 1 million voting stations based on their security, access, and availability. Logistics have to be arranged, local authorities have to be informed.
Security is a critical aspect of voting. In some places, there are just a few police officers, while in other areas, heavy security is deployed. The call is taken based on the judgement of local authorities, intelligence inputs and ground assessment.
There is an equally rigorous process for candidates. Their forms have to be filed, information vetted, disclosures and details verified. Then, ballot details is designed at the constituency level - list of candidates, their poll sign, their name, party name etc.
A True festival of democracy!
The complexity and scale of Indian elections are mind-boggling. The Election Commission never does get enough credit for handling such a HUGE task in a timely manner.
Interested readers may check out this short video by Vox on Indian elections in 2019. The number of voters have increased since then.