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In the last two days, three different journalists have asked me why the voter turnout in Mumbai has decreased to 43% in spite of voter registration initiatives like Jaago Re and transparency initiatives like Vote Report India.

I have been shocked by the low voter turnout myself and will be reflecting on it over several posts. Here’s my first attempt to answer that question, partly through the Vote Report India lens.

We have had 170 odd reports so far on Vote Report India whereas I was expecting close to a thousand reports by now.

Also, most of the reports are web reports, which is surprising given that we had a SMS short code and users could report incidents by sending a SMS starting with VoteReport to 5676785.

In terms of the content of the reports, most reports reference a news report. Election Commission Interventions is the most popular category, followed by Voter Bribing, Violence and Inflammatory Speech. The categories with first-hand experience — Forged Vote, Voting Machine Problems, Voter Name Missing and What Went Well — have had few reports.  Read More

The world’s biggest election is underway in India and, as India’s 714 million voters cast their ballots in the month-long elections, they are witness to a range of digital initiatives from political parties, civil society organizations, media houses and even corporates. It’s not surprising, then, that the Indian internet community is abuzz with discussions related to various aspects of the elections.

It’s not only a big election in terms of numbers, it’s a big election for India in terms of timing. Last November, the terrorist attack in Mumbai shook up India’s politically apathetic youngsters and brought them out into the streets. Since then, a series of digital civil society initiatives have sought to channel this newfound sense of civic engagement in the Indian youth into meaningful participation in the political process.

In the run up to the elections, online conversations in India have been charged with this civic consciousness. Transparency campaigns like No Criminals in Politics and Vote Report India and voter registration campaigns like Tata Tea’s Jaago Re have caught the imagination of urban India’s web-savvy youngsters, with their effective use of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.  Read More