How To Vote Intelligently

If you are in Hyderabad or anywhere else in Telangana, West Bengal, Gujarat, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Daman & Diu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Dadra & Nagar Haveli this is for you. When you wake up tomorrow, you have a historic opportunity to break records in the seventh round. No, not the seventh round of whiskey of vodka. But the seventh round to cast your vote.

If you are from Hyderabad, you are blessed twice, friends. You will have to vote twice. First vote is for the Assembly (Pink Paper). Second vote is for the Lok Sabha (White paper). Again, don’t get confused and ask for The Economic Times and Businessline because that’s what urbanites tell you – when they tell you, “ I read the pink paper” or “the white paper on business”. You don’t have to carry both nor roll them. By the way, you don’t have to carry even your mobile phones. You will be sent back if you are found with a mobile phone. Don’t bother passing it on to somebody you spot in your neighbourhood to do the honors. Take some identity card proof and do not forget the voting slip – someone would have given you the same before. If you haven’t yet got, don’t panic. Ask the volunteers of party offices camping outside the voting booth for verifying your names in the list. If you still can’t find your polling station and voter serial no. either visit www.ghmc.gov.in or dial the call center 2111 1111. Or, send an sms as “ SMS KYP to 9177999876.or identity verification, remember, 24 varieties of proofs are allowed from PAN to Aadhar Card.

The voting booths open from 7 am and go right till 6 pm. I don’t know whether early bird gets the worm but I have always found queues shorter when I go early. Infact, my father born before Independence, is usually the first voter in the booth. It gives a different kick, to wake early, have a shower, wear new clothes, greet morning sun, pray to God or Christopher Hitchens (if you are an atheist) and walk your way to the voting booth. That’s a routine we follow. If you have alternative plans for tomorrow, don’t even think of  it. Ask me. Offices are shut. Banks are closed. Hotels not open till evening. Cinemas are also, shut till 6 pm show. And, I checked with the box office, advance booking for “Anamika” and “Spiderman-2” also won’t open till evening. And IPL matches start later in the evening. So you have ten hours to do your own thing but first get the vote out of your way, get it inked and linked in with your social media presence.

And by the way, don’t worry about the EVMs – those beepy machines with the pink paper and the white paper as mentioned earlier. Don’t believe these machines can be rigged or booth-captured as reported in Pune etc. These machines are made by ECIL and Bharat Electronics and are both mechanically and electronically protected to prevent any tampering. The software used in these machines is burnt into a one-time programmable/masked chip so that it cannot be altered or tampered with. They can’t be hacked too. And remember, a maximum of five votes can be cast in one minute. Which means, even the presiding officer cannot enable the ballot for twelve seconds after every ballot is cast. With an electorate of over 814 million voters, there are 900,000 polling stations with lakhs of EVMs. I read somewhere that EVMs are not only tamper-proof and loud (not a single vote is accepted without a loud beep, audible even outside the polling booth) but they also save paper, about 10,000 metric tonnes of paper.

Back to the pink paper and white paper. Before you press the button corresponding to your choice of the candidate/symbol, wait for the green light to appear and a sound. Then after your press the button, a red light appears with another beeping sound – signalling that your vote is registered. Know this much, that it is no rocket science. When the EVMs are counted, election results are easiest to declare – within hours on May 16th.

I am no seasoned voter as I have just voted for six or seven General Elections and as many Assembly elections. But keeping these golden rules has always helped me cast a vote that makes a difference at the national and local level, even at the municipality level. My piece of unsolicited advice:

1. When you vote for the Lok Sabha, ensuring that you vote for the national party helps your vote to get counted amongst the national voting share of each party. Instead, if you vote for an Independent in Lok Sabha, the vote share gets fragmented and a clear choice is hard to come up. According to data from Election Commisison of India, the percentage of votes secured by Independents has been declining from 15.90 per cent in 1952 to just 5.19 per cent in 2009. This also clearly, corresponds to a fall in percentage of forfeited deposits of Independent Candidates in Lok Sabha elections from 67.54 per cent in 1952 to 99.35 per cent in 2009. Friends, clearly, voting for Independents in Lok Sabha is not an Audience Poll choice!
2. Vote with a clear conscience, without inducements, expectations and party affiliations and other considerations. Vote for a party that can make you see eye to eye with the next-gen also who must be more positive and hopeful than us. Not that we are not. But just in case!
3. When you vote for a party at a regional level, go for the one who is closest in your assessment and understanding – someone who matches performance, governance and clean record with fresh ideas.
4. In summary, nobody can influence or should influence who you vote for. It is a personal choice and a hard one at that, something that even your own family members can seldom agree upon. But if you close your eyes, and visualise the last five years and then determine what can change in the next five years with utmost honesty and sincerity, you will hit the right buttons. Believe me, in my own case, I hit the magic buttons every time since I was first eligible to vote except in the year 2009. I had been lucky to cast my votes for the winning candidate. This time, I am hoping I won’t even have to push my luck further.
5. Lastly, should  you use NOTA (None of the Above)? I am not an expert on this too. I will quote from Hindol Sengupta’s superb book : 100 THINGS TO KNOW AND DEBATE BEFORE YOU VOTE. He says,” No matter how many NOTA votes are cast, even if the most of the votes cast in a constituency are NOTA, a candidate winning the few remaining minority votes should be declared elected. Unless the law is amended to say if majority of the votes cast are NOTA, a re-election needs to be held, this does not solve the problem of corrupt candidates but not enough. As it often is in India, this rule does not go all the way. In short, Hindol says, “Use it. But remember it’s the beginning of change, not the end.”

So long then. Happy Voting. Happy Record Voting. And here’s wishing all of us better times ahead.