rajpaldular
Active member
Hi, I am the voter who goes out on the Election day and selects the person who is going to govern my country for next five years. I want to share with you my experience at a polling station in State Elections for Rajasthan that happened in December 2008. There was a long queue outside the polling station to caste the votes and it was taking too much of time for the voters to caste the vote and everyone was just not happy about the arrangements made by Election commission for the voting process. When i got my turn of casting the vote and entered in the room i understood the reason for the whole chaos:
1. The room was so dingy and hardly any lights were there, only a small bulb ( 25 W) hanging from the roof , under which the polling staff was going through those voter lists ( that too in pretty small font).
2. There were all ladies in the complete polling party and there was not even a single male staff to lead the party.
3. The lady polling officer who was suppose to check the identity of the voterby comparing the photo in the list with the photo on the proof produced by the voter was above the age of 50 and was having very low eyesight ( heavy specs), she was taking almost 5-10 minutes to confirm the identity of each voter. Seeing her condition , i do not blame her for the time taken.
4.The other lady who was suposed to put the ink on the voters finger was also above age of 50 and her hands were just shivering and just could not stablise to put it correctly on the finger in the first time.
After this experience , i felt that there is an issue with the arrangements being made by the Election commission. Almost 200-300 persons went back without casting vote due to this.Hence, i would suggest that the election arrangements for the upcoming Loksabha elections should not face the same issue again. There should be young staff ( 30-40 yrs) preferably male staff who is fit and capable to take the burden of the election duty which lasts for more than 20 hrs on the elction day.All employees should be given proper facilities and refreshments so that they also remain motivated and energetic to make sure that the bigest event of any democracy closes with maximum voting.
1. The room was so dingy and hardly any lights were there, only a small bulb ( 25 W) hanging from the roof , under which the polling staff was going through those voter lists ( that too in pretty small font).
2. There were all ladies in the complete polling party and there was not even a single male staff to lead the party.
3. The lady polling officer who was suppose to check the identity of the voterby comparing the photo in the list with the photo on the proof produced by the voter was above the age of 50 and was having very low eyesight ( heavy specs), she was taking almost 5-10 minutes to confirm the identity of each voter. Seeing her condition , i do not blame her for the time taken.
4.The other lady who was suposed to put the ink on the voters finger was also above age of 50 and her hands were just shivering and just could not stablise to put it correctly on the finger in the first time.
After this experience , i felt that there is an issue with the arrangements being made by the Election commission. Almost 200-300 persons went back without casting vote due to this.Hence, i would suggest that the election arrangements for the upcoming Loksabha elections should not face the same issue again. There should be young staff ( 30-40 yrs) preferably male staff who is fit and capable to take the burden of the election duty which lasts for more than 20 hrs on the elction day.All employees should be given proper facilities and refreshments so that they also remain motivated and energetic to make sure that the bigest event of any democracy closes with maximum voting.