for the first time in my 37-yr old life, i voted. i guess i never had a chance to vote after gaining civic awareness – and my excuse is that i was in the US pretty much all this while. any guesses who i voted for!?
the process get to vote is painfully and unreasonably long. i printed out my forms from jaagore.com. they have a nifty form to fillout and print. but where it gets tricky is to figure out where to submit it. fortunately i had a driver that sits around after he drops us off at work/school, so i put him to use. i sent him to one of the addresses listed on jaagore form – the Electoral Registration Officer in JP Nagar. he was then tossed from that office to BTM Layout office and then finally to the Koramangala office. you can write off a major portion of the day at each office visit. the office finally gives a tearoff from the application as proof of submission of the form.
and then you have to go back to the same office to ensure that the name is on the voter list. they typically verify it and give you the polling booth and the number at which your name is listed on the voter rolls. i will upload it once i figure out a way to redact the personal information.
you have the option of getting a voter registration card on the same visit. but according to the office, you can return there even after the election and avoid the lines. so we deferred on that.
here’s the location of the office.
View BBMP Office in Koramangala for Voter Registration in a larger map
on the election day (today), the next irky thing is to know where the election booth is, and who to vote for. i found the One Billion Votes site quite handy in knowing the candidates. the same site has a section that promises to show the exact location of the polling booth, but it was showing DB error messages. SQL Server FAIL. the trust building maintenance person comes to the rescue again and points us to the school that hosts the polling booth for our building.
we go to the booth, and stand in line at 7:15 am sharp. the nerdy-goody folks from the affluent neighborhood were already lined up, and many seemed to have already voted. may be 6:30am is the time for an in-and-out voting experience. it was a festive atmosphere at the line., clearly evident in the civic pride and common-ness that all the folks that were present there felt.
the booth is manned by 3 people, one to find the name on the list, one to take your ID particulars (my passport) and the last one to put the ink on your finger. the voting machine was enclosed in a carton that had one of it’s sides removed., placed on a make-shift stool. i was thinking voting MUST be better handled than this. i’d say it takes about 5 minutes for a normal vote to be cast with this staff of three. plus, there is a booth captain type fellow that walks around troubleshooting.
the booth fellow had a hard time finding my wife’s name and actually turned her away. i went in a bit later, and was able to locate mine (because i could read kannada and was looking for my name while the agent was doing the same). these people are clueless and poorly trained.
with all the hurdles and hardships, the spirit is alive and well., reaffirming one’s belief that people want to be heard, and people will raise their voice – even if nobody is listening.