Proceedings of

Proceedings of THE InTErnaTIonal

ConfErEnCE on VoTEr EduCaTIon for InClusIVE,

InformEd and ETHICal ParTICIPaTIon

New Delhi

OctOber

19-212016

ElEction commission of india

Heads of different Election Management Bodies and delegates from all over the world call on the Hon’ble President of India, Sh. Pranab Mukherjee during the International Conference on ‘Voter Education for Inclusive, Informed & Ethical Participation’,19th to 21st October, 2016 New Delhi, India.

Proceedings ofTHE InTErnaTIonal

ConfErEnCE on VoTEr EduCaTIon for InClusIVE,

InformEd and ETHICal ParTICIPaTIon

New Delhi

OctOber

19-212016

Proceedings of The inTernaTional conference on VoTer educaTion for inclusiVe, informed and eThical ParTiciPaTion

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It is indeed a pleasure to bring to you the Proceedings

of International Conference on ‘Voter Education for

Inclusive, Informed and Ethical Participation’ held at

New Delhi in October, 2016.The global voter education

conference, first of its kind, saw heads and the senior

representatives from over two dozen EMBs, International

Institutions, Experts and scholars from across the world.

Two laudable achievements of the Conference included

the ‘New Delhi Declaration on Voter Education’ and the

launching of internet based global knowledge platform for

voter education namely ‘VoICE.NET’.

The Conference saw the vision of Hon’ble Chief

Election Commissioner Dr Nasim Zaidi and his worthy

colleagues Mr A K Joti, and Mr O P Rawat, Hon’ble

Election Commissioners come true. They provided us

continued valuable guidance, leadership and inspiration

in carrying forward the voter education agenda for the

Conference.

The Conference was not meant to be a one-

time event. It was envisaged to renew the significance,

import and relevance of voter education on a continued

basis for enhancing electoral participation and larger

inclusion for achieving universal adult suffrage. In this

context, the VoICE.NET knowledge platform has seen

manifold expansion in its resources on voter education

through active vibrant participation of EMBs, International

Institutions and experts from across the world. VoICE

International, the global voter education magazine hosted

on VoICE.NET is now done with its first two Issues. VoICE

India, the half yearly magazine, shares Indian experience

on voter education. In January 2017, ECI organized

International Seminar on ‘Strategies for Empowering

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Young and Future Voters’. Conference Readers, Proceedings

and other papers relating to all these events are shared on

the VoICE.NET platform to learn and gain from each other.

These documents carry contribution from member EMBs,

Experts and International Institutions from across the world.

As such, VoICE.NET is gradually emerging as a vibrant hub of

knowledge exchange in voter education.

The Proceedings together with the Conference Reader,

papers relating to other conferences referred to above and

the articles published in issues of the VoICE International

provide a one-stop vast knowledge resource on voter

education, its practice and the related areas on VoICE.NET.

While I take this opportunity to once again thank all the

Heads of EMBs and other Dignitaries, Experts, International

Institutions who participated in the Conference, I am sure

that not only the Member countries, but also all the other

stakeholders from democracies of the world gain from this

rich knowledge resource in voter education.

I hope that platform of VoICE.NET will keep growing

with proactive cooperation of EMBs and international

organizations spread around the world.

I dedicate this Document to the Voters of the World.

Umesh SinhaSenior Deputy Election Commissioner,

Election Commission of India and Executive Secretary, VoICE.NET

New Delhi, June 2017


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ackn

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geme

nts This document on ‘Proceedings of the

International Conference on ‘Voter

Education for Inclusive, Informed and Ethical

Participation’ held at New Delhi in October, 2016

presents a one stop vast knowledge resource on

voter education systems of EMB’s of well over

two dozen countries, International Institutions and

Experts. During the conference, valuable words of

wisdom have been said, rich experiences shared

besides robust interactions among participants from

across the democracies of the world. Transcribing

what was presented, recalling what had been

stated and capturing these rich experiences in

essence faithfully has been a challenging and time

consuming, yet a satisfying experience. All for the

cause of voter education, it has been a pleasure

and privilege to work on this onerous task.

I express my sincere gratitude to Dr Nasim

Zaidi, Hon’ble Chief Election Commissioner of

India and his worthy colleagues Hon’ble Election

Commissioners Mr A K Joti and Mr O P Rawat

for their valuable guidance and providing me the

opportunity of working for this Conference.

I express my sincere thanks to Mr Umesh

Sinha, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner and

Member Secretary, VoICE.NET for his valuable, ever

innovative support in steering my thought process

as the Team Leader. My sincere thanks to Ms

Padma Angmo, Director, SVEEP, Voter Education

Division for providing all the valuable support in

recording of the proceedings, compilation of the

presentations and other documents including

transcripts.

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My special thanks to Dr Ms Aarti Aggarwal,

Senior Consultant, SVEEP Division and her team for

painstaking efforts in designing and careful addition

of conference pictures to this document. I thank all

the concerned staff of the SVEEP Division and

others in the ECI for their assistance in preparing

this document.

I express my sincere gratitude to the

participating Dignitaries from different EMB’s,

International Organizations and Experts for

sharing their valuable knowledge and experiences

during the Conference which form a part of these

Proceedings. Their contribution will go a long way

in developing innovative strategies and a continued

dialogue on voter education for inclusive, informed

and ethical participation for strengthening the

democracy across the world.

I am sure that this document along with

VoICE.NET, VoICE International (Knowledge

Resources emanating from the Conference) and the

Conference Reader, will provide valuable reference

point on the subject to the Stakeholders.

S D SharmaSenior Fellow,

Election Commission of India, New Delhi.


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EXHIBITION 013

INAUGURAL SESSION 021

TECHNICAL SESSION I 045

Electoral Literacy in formal education: Voter education in curricula and extra curricula

Presentations 047

TECHNICAL SESSION II 075

Inclusive Electoral Literacy through informal education channel: Reaching out to those outside schools and other marginalised groups i.e. Persons with Disability (PwDs), women, people working in unorganized labour sector, tribals etc

Presentations 077

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TECHNICAL SESSION III 113

Enhancement of participation by special categories of voters: Outreach for defence personnel, diplomatic mission personnel, polling personnel and overseas citizens

Presentations 115

TECHNICAL SESSION IV 149

Role of Information and Communication Technology for Voter Education & Feedback

Presentations 151

TECHNICAL SESSION V 179

Voter Education for Informed and Ethical Voting

Presentations 181

CLOSING SESSION 239


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09:30 OPENING OF EXHIBITION

10:00 - 10:50 INAUGURAL SESSION

10:00 - 10:05 Welcome by Padma Angmo, Director

10:05 - 10:10 Remarks by Ms. Marina Walter, Deputy Country Director, UNDP

10:10 - 10:15 Address by Mr O P Rawat, Election Commissioner

10:15 - 10:20 Address by Mr A K Joti, Election Commissioner

10:20 - 10:30 Key Note Address by Dr Nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner

10:30 - 10:45 Setting the Agenda: Identifying Issues & Challenges by Mr Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commission

10:45 -10:50 Vote of Thanks by Dhirendra Ojha, Director

10:50 -11:20 Coffee/Tea Break

11:20 -13:30 TECHNICAL SESSION I

Electoral Literacy in formal education: Voter education in curricula and extra curricula

Chair

Mr J A D Bautista, Chairman, Commission on Elections,Philippines & Mr Thomas Hicks, Chairman, U.S. Election Assistance Commission

Moderator

Mr Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioner

11:20 -11:25 Opening Remarks by Chairs

Presentations

11:25 -11:40 I. Canada - Mr. Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer

11:40 -11:55 II. Georgia - Ms. Natia Zaalishvili, Director

11:55 -12:10 III. Sri Lanka - Mr. Mudiyanselage Kumudu, Addl Commissioner

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12:10 -12:25 IV. Australia - Mr. Tim Courtney, First Asst Commissioner

12:25 -12:40 V. USA - Mr. Thomas Hicks, Chairman

12:40 -12:55 VI. India - Mr Chandra Bhushan Kumar, CEO Delhi

12:55 -13:25 Comments followed by Q&A

13:25 -13:30 Concluding Remarks by Chairs

13:30 -14:30 Lunch

14:30 – 17:00 TECHNICAL SESSION II

Inclusive Electoral Literacy through informal education channel: Reaching out to those outside schools and other marginalised groups i.e. Persons with Disability (PwDs), women, people working in unorganized labour sector, tribals etc

Chair

Mr Ahmed Hassan, Chairperson, IEBC, Kenya & Mr P G Gamato, Chief Electoral Commissioner, Papua New Guinea

Moderator

Mr Vijav Dev, Deputy Election Commissioner

14:30 -14:35 Opening Remarks by the Chairs

Presentations

14:35 -14:50 I. Indonesia - Mr. Hasyim Asy’ari, Commissioner

14:50 -15:05 II. Iraq - Mr. Safaa Ibrahim Jasim, Commissioner

15:05 -15:20 III. Myanmar - Mr. Aung Myint, Commissioner

15:20 -15:35 IV. Nepal - Dr. Ayodhee Prasad, Chief Election Commissioner

15:35 -15:50 V. Namibia - Ms. Notemba Tjipueja, Chairperson

15:50 -16:05 VI. Pakistan - Mr. Altaf Ahmad, Director


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16:05 -16:20 VII. Tunisia - Ms. Khameyel Fenniche, Commissioner

16:20 -16:35 VIII. Ms Sheri Meyerhoffer, International IDEA

16:35 -16:50 IX. India - Ms Radha Raturi, CEO Uttarakhand

16:50 -17:00 Quick Comments followed by concluding Remarks by Chairs

16:00 hrs Tea served on the table

1700 hrs Delegates depart to call on the Hon’ble President of India at Rashtrapati Bhawan

DAy 2: OCTOBER 20, 2016

09:30 -11:25 TECHNICAL SESSION III

Enhancement of participation by special categories of voters: Outreach for defence personnel, diplomatic mission personnel, polling personnel and overseas citizens

Chair

Mr O P Rawat, Election Commissioner, India & Mr Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer, Canada

Moderator

Mr Sudeep Jain, Director General, ECI

09:30 - 09:35 Opening Remarks by the Chairs

Presentations

09:35 - 09:50 I. Australia - Ms Lynn White, Assistant Commissioner

09:50 - 10:05 II. Iraq - Mr. Safaa Ibrahim Jasim, Commissioner

10:05 - 10:20 III. Lesotho - Ms. Liqabang Lydia Macheli, Civic Education Officer

10:20 - 10:35 IV. Mexico - Mr. Patricio Ballados, Executive Director

10:35 - 10:50 V. USA - Mr. Thomas Hicks, Chairman

10:50 - 11:05 VI. Mr Vasu Mohan, IFES, Regional Director

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11:05 - 11:20 VII. India - Ms Padma Angmo, Director, ECI Launch of Survey cum Competition for Overseas Indian Electors

11:20 - 11:25 Concluding Remarks by Chairs

11:25 - 11:40 Health Break/ Tea & Coffee

11:40 -13:30 TECHNICAL SESSION IV

Role of Information and Communication Technology for Voter Education & Feedback

Chair

Mr A K Joti, Election Commissioner, India & Mr Supachai Somcharoen, Chairman, Office of the Election Commission of Thailand

Moderator

Mr Sandeep Saxena, Deputy Election Commissioner

11:40 - 11:45 Opening Remarks by the Chairs

Presentations

11:45 - 12:00 I. Philippines-Mr. Juan Andrew Donato, Chairman

12:00 - 12:15 II. Fiji – Mr Mohammad Saneem, Commissioner

12:15 - 12:30 III. Mauritius- Mr Abdool Rahman, Electoral Commissioner

12:30 - 12:45 IV. Ms Najia Hashemee, UNDP, Regional Specialis

12:45 - 13:00 V. India – Mr Rajesh Lakhoni, CEO, Tamil Nadu

13:00 -13:25 Comments followed by Q&A

13:25 -13:30 Concluding Remarks by Chairs

13:30 -14:15 Lunch

14:15 -17:00 TECHNICAL SESSION V

Voter Education for Informed and Ethical Voting The P

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Chair

Mr A P yadav, Chief Election Commissioner, Nepal & Ms No temba Tjipueja, Chairperson, Electoral Commission of Namibia

Moderator

Mr Dileep Sharma, Director General

14:15 -14:20 Opening Remarks by the Chairs

Presentations

14:20 - 14:35 I. Afghanistan - Mohammad Aziz Bakhtiari, Commissioner

14:35 - 14:50 II. Brazil - Mr. Fabio Lima Quintas, Director

14:50 - 15:05 III. Kenya - Mr Rasi Masudi, Director

15:05 -15:20 IV. Malaysia - Mrs. Norlinah Binti Jamman, Chief Assistant

15:20 - 15:35 V. Maldives - Ms. Nazma Nizam, Administrative Officer

15:35 - 15:50 VI. Thailand - Mr. Supachai Somcharoen, Chairman

15:50 - 16:05 VII. Uganda - Mrs. Peninah Sekabembe, Principle Election Officer

16:05 - 16:20 VIII. Mr Karamjit Singh, Malaysia Commonwealth Studies Centre

16:20 - 16:35 IX. Ms Ornit Shani, Senior Lecturer, Haifa University

16:35 - 16:50 X. India - Mr Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioner

16:50 -17:00 Quick comments followed by Concluding Remarks by Chairs

17:00 - 17:15 Health Break/ Tea & Coffee

17:15 - 18:15 CLOSING SESSION

17:15 - 17:45 Comments on Draft Resolution and adoption - steered by Mr Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioner

17:45 - 17:50 Launch of VoICE.NET

17:50 - 17:55 Remarks Sumeeta Banerji, UNDP Assistant Country Director

17:55 - 18:10 Address Dr Naseem Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner

DAy 3: OCTOBER 21, 2016

09:30 City Tour

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON VOTER EDUCATION FOR INCLUSIVE, INFORMED AND ETHICAL PARTICIPATION

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The exhibition showcased the best practices in voter education adopted all over the world as well as the SVEEP initiatives in India. Interactive games and a Model Polling Booth with the EVM machine, where the visitor could vote for the best section of the exhibition, were thronged by visitors throughout the conference period.

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Inaugural session day 1

10:00 - 10:50

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OctOber

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Ms Padma Angmo, in her welcome address expressed immense pleasure in welcoming Hon’ble Chief Election Commissioner, Dr. Nasim Zaidi, Election Commissioners Mr. A. K. Joti and Mr. O. P. Rawat, Visiting Heads of the EMB’s on behalf of Election Commission of India and UNDP. She extended a warm welcome to the other Representatives from Election Management Bodies of 25 coun-tries, International Institutions, Experts from the field of Elections and democracy, senior officials from the Government of India, Rep-resentatives from the National Political Par-ties of India, the Civil Society, Media, senior officials of Election Commission of India, and all the other participants.

Giving a brief outline of the interaction,

she said that the Conference, spread over two days would have thirty two presentations to be covered under five thematic sessions. She said that the Participants may look for-ward to a very interactive, interesting and rich experience sharing in the Conference. ◆

WELCOME ADDRESS BY MS PaDMa aNgMO DIRECTOR, SVEEP DIVISION, ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA

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REMARKS BY MS MarINa WaltEr DEPUTY COUNTRY DIRECTOR, UNDP, INDIA

Ms Marina Walter said in her remarks that UNDP is impressed with the distinguished presence of dignitaries and the rich experi-ence and knowledge among the Participa-tion. She expressed happiness that UNDP, as a junior Partner in this Conference, had been working with the Election Commission of India on this for about two years. She add-ed that it was a matter of great pleasure and satisfaction for the UNDP to see the Distin-guished Participation, to be able to bring all the Participating Heads of the EMB’s and Experts together, to witness this experience and to be able to have a platform for ex-change of experience. She said that UNDP looks forward to see the use of this platform for identifying main issues in voter education,

voter participation and exchange of knowl-edge. She mentioned that the deliberations in this conference carried a glimpse of hope for voter education in the world.

She said that UNDP is privileged to be working with Election Commission of India as a long term partner in the area of demo-cratic election management in promotion of exchange of knowledge, capacity building in wider field of electoral management and designing of learning institutions. The under-lying basis of this cooperation is the fact that there is always a lot of interest in the Indi-an example, that there is always a need to learn as to how it is done in a country that has been organizing electoral processes on such a magnitude, and that it is very unique


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and offers numerous good examples that one can learn from.

As a global institution, UNDP have an-nually supported 40 to 50 electoral projects on the ground in many of the countries rep-resented here. UNDP engage with member states in between the elections on capac-ity building and on supporting the elector-al managing bodies. At local level UNDP Country Offices try to support and stay in touch and try to build capacities in the long run. UNDP recognizes that a free, fair and inclusive election processes is at core of ev-ery democracy and at the core of building up governance and democratic governance structures. UNDP provides, therefore, sup-port not only during the electoral processes but also during a wider range of local elec-tions, referenda’s. The support covers mul-tiple phases of this electoral cycle ranging

from constitutional and legal reform support, electoral institutional reform, some areas of dispute resolutions that is very predominant in post conflict countries, civic voter edu-cation, which of course is the theme of this getting together, voter registration and down to the simple procurement of ballot papers, ballot boxes and the nitty-gritty of operation-alizing the voting processes in a country. In this they are supporting many key players on the ground, the electoral management bod-ies, the Media, the civil society, youth orga-nizations, all such organizations that are on the other side of the spectrum and have an important role to play in helping to get the vote out here, play to prepare the electorate, helping to prepare the voters for their roles and responsibilities.

Reverting to the fact that UNDP feel very privileged to have been a partner of the

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025Election Commission for many years, she said that UNDP appreciate the way the ECI operates, what they (ECI) have achieved in this country and because of the high degree of respect they command internationally and nationally. Therefore for the UNDP to help create such a platform, to bring everyone to-gether, is not only a pleasure but also goes back to the core mandate of what UNDP

want to work on. As is well known, in every election, voter and civic education are nec-essary to ensure that all constituents, men, women, young and new voters are aware and know their responsibilities, know their roles, know their rights. Though voter edu-cation is a key element in electoral process, yet a global look at the way electoral rolls are prepared and the processes are driven, vot-er education fails to get enough attention.

She said that civic and voter education is most critical especially in the post-conflict countries where political situation is very volatile with unprecedented impact on the country’s future. In such environment, the government and in particular the national election bodies are primarily responsible for voter education. However, one has to ac-

knowledge the increasingly important role of media, civil society, youth organizations. Hence, the civic and voter education has become critical to democratic sustenance. In many post-conflict countries, peace set-tlements very often establish new forms of government and new types of electoral pro-cesses that are often very complex for the voters and it is not always easy to under-

stand the roles. So, the civic and voter ed-ucation play an important role in preparing electorate to participate in those processes. Both, civic education and voter education, of course, encourage the voter to participate, encourage the citizen to become an active voter, take a role and responsibility.

She added that it is unfortunately seen across the globe that bulk of the fi-nancing, bulk of the very operation is

very often linked to the organization and lo-gistics of the electoral processes. In contrast not that much money, not that much time, not enough is spent on the element of civic ed-ucation or voter education. The experience shows that even greater awareness does not always get translated into greater partic-

If one looks from a global perspective, especially from the UN perspective, it is disheartening to see some countries where people fight for their right to vote and yet there are other countries where people do not go to vote.


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ipation. This can be cured through required attention to voter education, by engaging people through effective communication to participate and explaining what their roles are? Voter education is not only the correct, but the most appropriate way to improve participation in a democracy.

Realizing this, UNDP have seen that several countries have made voter education a part of their constitutional mandate and that is the right step and the important step to take.

In this context and on this note, she concluded, that it was very satisfying to see participants from over 25 countries, and she hoped that they will use this opportunity and that they will use this platform not only for learning but also for exchanging and high-lighting how, the systems and processes can be improved and how, services of the UNDP can be used. She hoped the UN, In-ternational organizations and the civil society to push this initiative forward for enhancing participation.

She said that if one looks from a global perspective, especially from the UN perspec-tive, it is disheartening to see some countries where people fight for their right to vote and yet there are other countries where people do not go to vote. Where people don’t use this right, they do not perhaps appreciate that this right is so hard to be earned in other countries. For UNDP, this is at the core of creating stronger democratic processes and stronger nations, so they are really looking forward to a tremendous exchange of knowl-edge in this conference, all the practical ex-periences that the Participants are bringing in, they are trying to capture as much as possible and feed it back into the system for dissemination of knowledge and present the same in the form of the best examples that one can find and re-listen to.

She concluded by saying that she was very much looking forward to listening to the Distinguished Guests, and she thanked the Participants for coming here and joining the Conference. ◆

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Mr Rawat extended a warm welcome to all the Distinguished Participants in the inter-action on voter education for inclusive, in-formed, ethical and comprehensive electoral participation. He said that whatever efforts have been made for voter education till now, in fact, should have been made right from the past as the socio political environment is be-coming rather volatile these days and many experts feel the increased threat perception and complex challenges to the whole human society from larger lethal arsenal build ups at the fingertips of the political leaders in the world of today. Therefore, it is very important, not only from the point of view of ensuring free, fair, transparent elections but also for having participatory and accountable gover-

nance aiming at global welfare. He said that we cannot afford to overlook the lurking dan-ger and therefore, we should apply our minds to find ways, innovations to ensure that vot-er education achieves different dimensions, slowly but surely to ensure that participation is inclusive, informed and ethical.

Many questions lurk to find an answer and he said that he would like to read fa-mous lines from the famous singer and No-bel laureate, Bob Dylan, “How many roads must a man walk, before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail be-fore she sleeps in the sand? Yes! And how many times must the cannon ball fly before they are forever banned? The answer, all of you, my friend, is blowing in the wind; an-

ADDRESS BY Mr. O.P. raWat HON’BLE ELECTION COMMISSIONER OF INDIA


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swer is blowing in the wind.” So, he felt that all these beautiful brains, brought together at this forum from all across the world will ap-ply themselves thoroughly to find these an-swers, to grab these answers from the wind

blowing all around the globe. He wished all success to this interaction and thanked the Participants for their presence at the Inter-action. ◆

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Mr. Joti extended a warm welcome to all the Distinguished Participants in the interaction on voter education for inclusive, informed, ethical and comprehensive electoral partic-ipation. He said that the democratic coun-tries across the world do share common political governance module. All the demo-cratic countries are unique since they have got their own geographical limits, socio-cul-tural, socio-economic status, demographic size and vintage of democracy. The Elec-tion Management Bodies do face unique challenges while holding elections in their countries and they have also designed, over the period time, solutions to problems that they face in their own areas of jurisdiction. The lessons learnt by the EMBs will be valu-

able for other EMBs also. This international conference on voter education for inclusive, informed and ethical participation has been designed to learn from the experience of EMBs, Governmental and Non-Governmen-tal institutions by way of sharing the best practices, policies and initiatives on voter education. All EMBs recognize the need for inclusive participation of voters through ex-ercise of informed and ethical voting, ethical choice as key to strengthening the fabric of democracy. A voter is the central point of electoral framework and every voter must be thoroughly aware and educated about the electoral processes and procedures so as to ensure his or her informed and ethical participation.

ADDRESS BY Mr. a.K. JOtI HON’BLE ELECTION COMMISSIONER OF INDIA


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In any democracy, the government draws its legitimacy from the people through their voting preferences. Thus, free, fair and participative elections are the very founda-tion of the democracies. Any gap in the vot-ing by the people points to a trust deficit of the people in that democratic country. The voter education for inclusive, informed and ethical participation by all the stakeholders because in democracies it is not only the voters, there are multiple stakeholders, that is the political parties, the contesting candi-dates, electors, media, NGOs, and the civil societies, which contribute to increase the transparency of Election Management pro-cesses so as to increase the inclusivity of electoral processes with their commitment

to augment the public confidence in the in-tegrity of the election processes which are followed by that particular country.

The Election Commission of India has completed the journey of over 65 years since its inception in 1950. This journey of over 65 years has led to empowerment of voters and all the stakeholders in strengthening the de-mocracy in India. The Election Commission of India has always adopted a progressive and dynamic approach towards adopting the

best election management practices globally and adoption of the latest technology which-ever is available at that point of time to aug-ment the public confidence in the integrity of the election processes. Election Commis-sion of India has also taken several initiatives to optimize the potential of the information, communication technology for enhanced service delivery to all the stakeholders to improve the electoral literacy through digital by way of extensive using the secure cloud technology on the multi-modal communica-tion channels that is the web portals, mobile apps, SMS gateways and National Contact Centre. Election Commission of India has al-ways been keeping the best of technology changes and introducing IT to share informa-

tion and knowledge with all the stakeholders. Over the last 2-3 years, Election Commis-sion has become active on social media, which is a new tool and a new facilitation centre to facilitate the voter education and to ensure inclusive and ethical voting by the electors. The present day younger genera-tion in India is social media savvy. The voter education promotion and ethical voting ed-ucation is being carried out through social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

A voter is the central point of electoral framework and every voter must be thoroughly aware and educated about the electoral processes and procedures so as to ensure his or her informed and ethical participation.

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031Training sessions and public addresses are delivered through the YouTube as open data. During elections, WhatsApp groups are cre-ated and used effectively for immediate shar-ing of information by the stakeholders. Wide use of social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has helped the Chief Elector-al Officers at the state level in establishing contacts with the individual voters in motivat-ing them for their participation in the elector-al processes. He said that he would just give an example because he was not talking only theory; this has been actually implemented for the last 2 years in more than 7-8 State Assembly Elections and the Parliament Elec-tions in the year 2014. In the case of the Leg-islative Elections held in the State of Tamil Nadu in April-May 2016, the social media campaign launched by the Chief Electoral Officer was focused on electoral registra-tion, readiness and ethical voting. Some of the tools used by the electoral authorities on the social Media are jingles, movie referenc-es, contests, celebrity videos, ethical voting pledge movement, live twitter chat, twitter e-cards, info-graphics, election cause etc. The Tamil Nadu Chief Election Officer had also launched a campaign to popularize the message with a unique slogan “No Note, For the Vote”. This is a very important slogan because one knows that the money is play-ing an increasing important role in the voting in some democratic setups. State Election Authorities in Tamil Nadu interacted with the voters and an ethical voting pledge was administered by it to 16.4 million citizens of the Tamil Nadu state. The participants were college going student, university going stu-

dent, NGOs, people at large in rural areas and in urban areas. It was a great effort and all Chief Electoral Officers in different states are also doing it. He said that he was giving one example, because perhaps that was the best example among very good efforts which were made by the election authorities at the State level. The notable outcome of these initiatives is increased involvement of youth in elections and increased awareness about ethical voting.

Election Commission of India also at-taches very high importance to the special needs of persons with dis-

ability for inclusive elections. For ease of ac-cessibility, ramps have been provided in all the one million polling stations as one of the assured minimum facilities in all the polling stations in the country. He said that this is a very good achievement and it shows the commitment of the ECI that all the PwD’s should also feel equally comfortable to come and vote in the polling stations. Again he gave an example of Tamil Nadu that during the election held on 16th May, 2016. Over 13,000 numbers of wheelchairs were mobi-lized and made available at polling stations for use of persons with disability. Volunteers came from students of colleges and universi-ties to help the needy electors at the polling station. ECI had taken a few more steps that include special categories of electors to cast their votes without much difficulties. ECI had also permitted exclusive polling stations for the electors who were in the lepers’ home. This is one area where nobody is willing to go but still the Chief Electoral Officers at the


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State level had set up special polling stations in these hospitals so that those people don’t have to come out and they can vote com-fortably in their place of stay. Similarly, the ECI had set up polling stations in the old age homes, blind schools in the different states of the country. The ECI has a voter centric vision and is working with the motto of ‘No voter to be left behind’.

Enhanced voter participation in the democratic and electoral processes is inte-gral to the successful governance of a dem-ocratic country and empowerment of the citizens of the country. The ECI has made voter education as an integral part of election management process. He drew attention to the ECI’s flagship program, shown in the

exhibition at the Conference, the ‘System-atic Voters Education and Electoral Partici-pation’, commonly known as SVEEP, which was launched in the year 2009 throughout the India. The SVEEP program has twin ob-jectives of enrolling and enhancing ethical participation. The effectiveness of the im-plementation of the SVEEP program by the ECI can be seen by the fact that the voting turnout which was 417 million, that is, voting percentage was 58.19% in the 2009 par-liament elections of India increased to 554 million voters, that is a voter turnout of 66.4% in 2014 parliament election. Thus, during the 5 year period between 2009 to 2014 the parliament elections saw an increase of

136 million voters in absolute number, which is 8.2% increase during the five year peri-od. Another important feature worth men-tioning is that the gender voting gap which were very huge in the earlier elections, got reduced to just 1.5% in the 2014 parlia-ment election, as against the gap of 4.4% in the 2009 parliament election. It has also been observed that in the past few years the participation of women has exceeded men in terms of voter turnout in most of the elections. In the democratic countries the holding of free, fair, peaceful and participa-tive election determines the political destiny of the people. Election Commission of India is making determined effort to increase the electoral awareness amongst all the electors

and make sincere efforts to ensure higher participation by the electors as and when the polls are held. Election Commission of India efforts are directed toward designing customized solution for all the electors. The election authorities have to reach out to all the voters so that they feel convinced and get motivated to reach the polling station to cast their vote.

He concluded with a note of confi-dence that this two day international confer-ence would empower all the EMBs by way of knowledge and experience sharing for strengthening of democracy by encouraging voter education for inclusive, informed and ethical participation. ◆

It has also been observed that in the past few years, the participation of women has exceeded men in terms of voter turnout.

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“My worthy fellow Commissioners, Mr. Jyoti, Mr. Rawat, Deputy Representative of UNDP, Miss Walter, Mr. Umesh Sinha, all the partic-ipants from 25 countries and International In-stitutions ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to you all.

It’s my proud privilege and great honor to warmly welcome the distinguished heads and members of EMBs, Specialist, Domain Experts from various Election Commissions, Distinguished representatives of UNDP, IFES, International IDEA, Commonwealth Study Centre, Haifa University, represen-tatives of political parties, our Ex-Election Commissioners, Ex-Chief Election Commis-sioners for participating in this conference.

I am happy to note that the participat-

ing EMBs represent a mix of older and stable democracies and the younger and emerging ones; I feel that the capital of the world’s largest democracy, New Delhi is the most suitable venue for conducting this event. It is not only the capital city of the world’s largest democracy, but also the eminent city where the world’s longest written Constitution was adopted 67 years ago, on 26th of Novem-ber, 1949. Friends, pleasant weather is set-ting here in the city and even the nature is welcoming you. I hope the participants are feeling at home and I am confident that the ECI team will leave no stone unturned in en-suring that you are comfortable and have a very memorable stay in this country.

As I stand here, I see in front of me

KEY NOTE ADDRESS BY Dr NaSIM ZaIDI HON’BLE CHIEF ELECTION COMMISSIONER OF INDIA


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three kinds of representations. One, I see the world through the prism of 25 countries, from all continents. This conference, under this roof, represents 2.87 billion population and 1.87 billion voters of the world and this phenomenal representation, comprising nearly 40% of the world’s population under a single roof bears testimony to the impor-tance of the conference on the world stage and also the huge importance that EMBs at-tach to voter education. I would like to take this opportunity to applaud the outstanding leadership provided by all of you in your re-spective countries in promoting voter educa-tion and strengthening electoral democracy. The second representation, I see the shin-ing light of democracy through the common

belief and aspiration of all EMBs present in this hall and thirdly, through the colorful ka-leidoscope of EMBs, I see fairness, equity, inclusion, participation and justice as all of you are engaging in giving faithful expression to the democratic aspirations of multitudes in the form of representative governments as chosen by people.

Friends, I am also happy to see anoth-er massive presence of the people, who are the fundamental reason of the very existence

of EMBs, because people’s participation and action in elections is what matters. For EMBs, the people are referred to as electors or voters. We put them in our electoral lists, we count their wishes through ballot boxes or voting machines, but these million upon million are living and breathing people, for many of whom, her or his one vote is the only real power and the only redeeming hope.

Friends, we often tend to miss in our lofty discourse the fundamental truth which is that election belong to the people, election are about the people and election are of the people. This is what makes elections great and noble. I must say that all other stakehold-ers like political parties, candidates, election managers and the rest including all of us, our

only support cast. This international confer-ence has been conceptualized keeping the people at the centre of our attention, focus-ing on the role, participation and action of the people in the elections. This conference is going to work towards evolving strate-gies and measures to enable, empower and equip these people to participate and take right, informed and ethical decisions. In this context, it is meaningful that we are having these deliberations in India, not because this

Friends, we often tend to miss in our lofty discourse the fundamental truth which is that election belong to the people, election are about the people and election are of the people. This is what makes elections great and noble.

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035is the largest democracy, not because we have electors that are more in numbers than entire population in many continents, individ-ually or in combination also, and not because India has delivered credible elections each time, without interruption for over 6 decades but because few years back right in the mid-dle of National Elections of 2009, Election Commission of India sort of rediscovered it-self, there was a realization that we might he conducting a correct election but that was not a full election. When multitudes are left out of the electoral registration process and many millions on the roll do not turn up to vote, our sheer size made sure that those left behind were also huge number, measuring a country size population. Thus, there was a deficit that was to be covered. With this realization, the Commission commenced a journey. So in 2009, we took up voter edu-cation and electoral participation as a priority area for the Commission. We plunged, head forward, in project mode and gave our pro-gram a name, Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation, “SVEEP” which my colleague just referred.

Today is an important milestone of the same journey, in fact a celebration of it and I thank you all for joining us in this journey. SVEEP over the years has become a house-hold name in India, it has already shepherd-ed at least one General Election in all 31 provinces and union territories of the coun-try, one comprehensive Natioinal General Election, 2014 besides 7 annual revisions of the country’s electoral register. Some prov-inces have registered voting percentage as high as 94%. SVEEP has given us credit-

able gains in a relatively short period of time, enrollment, turnout, women’s voting, youth participation, you name it, the achievements have been praiseworthy. However, the jewel in the crown has been the 66.4% turnout on an electorate of 834 million in the National Elections held in 2014 which is the highest ever voter participation in last 6 decades. As mentioned by my colleague, higher percent-age of women participation, the reduction in the gap between male and female was also recorded. So, we may be late comers, but are true comers. Our officials will share with you what, how and where we pulled through and what long distances we are still to cov-er. But, more importantly, we would like to hear out the veterans present in this hall who have done it all for long, and all those who can wake us up to the risks and limitations of voter education, if any.

Ladies and gentlemen, many democ-racies around the world are facing declining voter turnout and increasing

apathy to vote amongst a specific group of people. The reasons of lower participation of the citizens in elections vary from person-al reasons, belief, perceptions, barriers and sense of difficulty to pure lethargy and many others, some known and some yet to be in-vestigated and these reasons are strikingly similar across global populations. It will be great for EMBs to exchange notes, learn and replicate the best practices in this regard. Issue of compulsory voting as prevalent in some countries has been a matter of discus-sion earlier in this country also. The compar-ative benefits of compulsory voting and the


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one led by voter education will be worth ex-amining again. In our country we found the idea not so practical but we would like to hear others, nevertheless.

Friends, democracy is the underpin-ning of our common enterprise, we cannot proudly walk away only with high registra-tion or high voter turnout, we will have to answer for every small exclusion anywhere, when we truly care and proactively strive to enfranchise the people in difficult situations, in special situation, for disconnected people and for marginalized section of the society only then, we can stake claim to worthy pro-fessional credit.

Now, besides increasing the Electoral Participation from all sections of society, we would venture into the next level of relation-ship with voters. We should launch concert-

ed and focused discourses and campaigns about the quality. I am referring to the grey area of vote buying, illegal inducement, spu-rious influences in the context of voting ac-tion. In our voter education program, we have built an integral segment on informed and ethical voting. I am sure many of you would bring on table, complex problems and their solution through multimodal and multidis-ciplinary approach. We would eagerly look forward to getting some more clues to ad-dress these challenges which we are facing. In this context, may I also emphasize the rise in the use of technological advancement and internet penetration, which is radically trans-forming the relationship between citizen and EMBs. Social media effectively surrounds us. My colleague has already informed about the extensive deployment of the IT in Elec-

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037tion Commission and this conference is also devoting a special session dedicated to har-nessing of this fascinating and rapidly evolv-ing field.

Ladies and gentlemen, illuminating leadership of EMBs present in this hall will present a global bouquet of unique interven-tions and initiatives in the area of voter edu-cations. Restore success stories from Cana-da, USA, Kenya and Namibia from emerging democracies such as Myanmar and Afghan-istan, Iraq and from Brazil, India on ethical voting to name a few will be very fascinating.

Imperatives of formal civic education, voter education at schools, colleges and universi-ty levels and in formal education will also be discussed and experiences shared. EMBs have a very historical opportunity to connect with the people through the medium of voter education and lastly to meet the objective of the conference on a sustainable basis and to forge new partnership and write a new chapter of international collaboration on voter education, it is proposed that we col-lectively number 1, adopt a mutually agreed framework of engagement, New Delhi Dec-laration on voter education, a draft of which

has already been circulated to all of you and number 2, Resolve to establish a glob-al Knowledge Network on voter education, the VoICE.NET, a draft has also been shared with you. It will be a platform to share and exchange best practices on voter education which will be nurtured by all EMBs and which will be supported by all institutes and orga-nizations working in the area of democracy.

Before I conclude, I take this opportu-nity to acknowledge and appreciate several months long sincere and dedicated efforts of the team led by Deputy Election Com-

missioner Shri. Sinha, Mr S D Sharma, Se-nior Fellow, Dhirendra Ojha, Padma Angmo, UNDP workers, consultants and all other of-ficers and personnel of ECI. I extend a very hearty welcome to all the representatives of political parties also. We have seven nation-al political parties their representatives are present here, I am sure they would also like to contribute towards this important subject and with these words, I once again welcome you to Delhi, I wish you a very comfortable and very enjoyable stay in India and I wish this conference a great success. Thank you very much. ◆

It is proposed that we collectively number 1, adopt a mutually agreed framework of engagement, New Delhi Declaration on voter education, a draft of which has already been circulated to all of you and number 2, Resolve to establish a global Knowledge Network on voter education, the VoIce.Net


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Mr. Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Com-missioner made a presentation focusing on identification of issues and challenges pos-ing participation deficit. He underlined the significance of Voter Education and SVEEP (Systematic Voter Education & Electoral Par-ticipation) for greater qualitative and quanti-tative participation in India.

Welcoming the Participants, Sh Sinha, started his presentation with a quote in mag-nificent words from Mr. Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN, that “When the citizens go to the polls and cast their votes, they aspire not only to elect their leaders but also to choose a direction for their nation.” He said that he was both delighted and at the

same time humbled as he stood amongst the illustrious and eminent gathering comprising of the Chairman, Chiefs and members of of Election Management Bodies from across the globe, the Chief Election Commission-er and the Election Commissioners of India, the Former Chief Election Commissioners, members of the political parties, specialists and domain experts, distinguished represen-tatives of UNDP and various other interna-tional organizations and esteemed repre-sentatives from other stakeholders from the realm of election management and Media. He thanked the participants for sparing their precious time for the conference. He said that the Chief Election Commissioner, the

SETTING THE AGENDA BY Mr. UMESH SINHa DEPUTY ELECTION COMMISSIONER, ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA

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039Election Commissioners and Deputy Chief of UNDP had already broken the ice for this conference; therefore his task was to set the agenda in motion which he did with the pre-sentation about the issues and challenges in the field of voter education.

Starting with the UN Declaration of Human Rights that carries the global con-vergence on the subject, he briefly stat-ed the content of the UDHR that everyone has the right to take part in the government of a country directly or through fully cho-sen representatives and that the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of the government. This will, shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. Briefly mentioning about the other UN instruments he referred to the guidance provided on Voter Education by the UN Centre for Human Rights in the handbook on Human Rights and Elections. The guidance provides in Para 124 and 125 that the funding and administration should be provided for objective, non-partisan voter education and information campaigns. Some of the countries have included voter educa-tion as an integral part of their Constitution.

The main issue before any election management body is, “how to ensure the quantitative and qualitative participation?” He said that perhaps all the countries face the problem of participation deficit. This defi-cit is not in the quantitative terms only but also in the qualitative terms. The in qualita-tive terms, the question is how to address the issues of making the elections influence

free and inducement free for the country and ensure a hassle free registration and partic-ipation. The first task is to bring every eligi-ble person on board and register him as a voter, facilitate him to use his franchise and finally how to facilitate the voters with special needs and how to provide all the necessary information facilitation and motivation.

He continued that the main challeng-es are to ensure that every eligible citizen is able to be registered as an

elector, every elector is able to cast his or her vote at the time of election, every elector is informed and made aware of the elector-al process, the political parties, candidates, date and place of poll and timings and all necessary facilities are provided to the voters to be able to vote through a convenient lo-cation near their place of residence. Special facilities are provided to the special category of voters and they are also are motivated ad-equately to go and cast their vote. But if we see the participation across the globe, many countries reflect low voter turnouts and as such there is a general concern about the turnouts. Even in India, as Honorable Chief Election Commissioner has said, “That till 2009 we were struggling through how to address the issue of participation”, which was about 58%. Thus there has not been a very encouraging trend in voter participation across the world. The question is, how to address that? The main barriers, which have been identified, are the legal and procedural bottlenecks both, for registration as well as for voting and the inability to leverage mod-ern communication technology for smooth


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and seamless registration and voting. Then lack of motivation and apathy amongst some categories of voters such as youth, urban dwellers, sometimes more educated and rich people, they don’t want to stand in the queue and go for the voting. Then lack of proper facilitation for the persons with spe-cial needs. These are the major challenges, these are the factors which Idea Internation-al has identified as the mechanical, political factors, then other systemic factors and de-mographic factors.

India’s big challenges have been, the gender gap, urban apathy, youth disconnect, reaching out to the persons with disability and margin commonality, participation of in-ternal and external migrants, inducement for

voting and lack of informed choice. There-fore, the objective of the Systematic Vot-ers Education and Electoral Participation popularly known as SVEEP has four major objectives: (i) how to bridge the gap in reg-istration? (ii) How to include and make the participation process inclusive? (iii) How to have informed and ethical voting and (iv) the continuous electoral literacy through the for-mal as well as informal education process?

This slogan at that time was given as “the greater participation for a stronger democra-cy” and another slogan which Hon’ble Chief Election Commissioner himself developed is, “No voter to be left behind.” The ECI is work-ing with the objective of achieving greater participation from the people both quanti-tatively as well as qualitatively. If one looks at the journey of voter education from 2009, as Hon’ble CEC has already mentioned, voter education cannot be called merely an ornamental or a fringe activity. It has to be a integral and central part of the electoral management process and thus a special program for the voter education was start-ed with the caption VEEP. Later, expression systematic was added so it became SVEEP.

Through the process of iteration we have been evolving our own SVEEP strategy, we had SVEEP Phase 1, SVEEP Phase 2 now we have a 5 years program called SVEEP 3. The three integral parts of the entire program were information, motivation and facilitation.

He went into the anatomy of the cam-paign in developing with the questions such as: How to provide information to the last voter in the country, in what way, in what

Voter education cannot be called merely an ornamental or a fringe activity. It has to be a integral and central part of the electoral management process and thus a special program for the voter education was started with the caption VEEP. Later, expression systematic was added so it became SVEEP.

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041language and through what different pro-cesses? Then the issue of motivation comes; there are many people who have information yet they are not motivated enough. How to bring them around? He refers to the his own experience as the Chief Electoral Officer when they tagged the Valentine Day with vote to lead into a special campaign “My Vote My Valentine.” Then comes the facilita-tion factor, “may I help you?” He referred to different kind of facilitations, starting from the grass root level at the police station up to the apex level. He referred to the initiatives about bridging the gender gap; where they start-ed with piggy backing on the government programs, partnering with the civil societies, political parties and the educational institu-tions. Then the question of developing the special campaign for inclusion of the women in different categories such as women in the family way and the mothers at the post natal period. For the connecting the youth, they made the educational institutions as the hub of our activity and those who are not literate, for them we had a special informal educa-tional program for them. So, they involved all the stakeholders to connect the youth.

Urban apathy poses yet another chal-lenge. Even though being educated and knowing about the processes, there is urban apathy. This issue was addressed by cre-ating voter facilitation centers including the resident welfare societies and other com-munity organizations. He said that they also involved all the corporate bodies and a spe-cial campaign was launched by networking the corporate bodies, trade organizations and other community organizations. He said

that they ran a special campaign through the print electronic media, internet media and the social media on all places with a heavy footfall. This special publicity campaign was initiated with the help of youth and other stakeholders. The entire exercise was aimed at making the process inclusive for all cate-gories of voters. He said that these are the kinds of facilitation which helped provide mass popularization.

Another special initiative in India en-gages the school children. In this very special initiative all school children carry a pledge letter for their parents and their family members for signing by the parents and their family members to the effect that those who are the voters, shall vote. Further, the nation-al and state level leading personalities who volunteer to be a part of the campaign and cause an invitation letter to issue from their side, their messages on audio, video and different ways for voting to all the citizens. Then they organize, mass mobilizations like marathons, human chains, rallies and differ-ent kind of activities to promote voting. They also use the folk art as well as the music which act as definitely one of the major areas for creating lot of voter awareness through songs and the programs.

The result is seen in terms of partic-ipation which was around 58% in 13th Lok Sabha Elections, went up to

66.5% in the 14th Lok Sabha and the addi-tional participation was more than 120 mil-lion. He referred to the curve in the graphical presentation for the purpose. The gender gap which was around 16.71% came down


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to 1.55% as a result of the aforesaid initia-tives. He added that the turnouts in State Assembly elections also rose from the – in the 50s to the level of 80s meaning thereby a significant enhancement in the turnout. Now, he said the entire effort was to build on the SVEEP Phase I and II and developing a stra-tegic shift to mainstreaming of the electoral literacy in all systems of formal, informal edu-cation, then strengthening institutional mech-anism, partnering with the all stakeholders, wider communication, strengthening facilita-tion, targeted intervention for special catego-ry of voters and building partnership.

He added that the challenges remain and one can learn from the global practic-es? 4 key areas in voter education have been defined for the conference and these are: Electoral Literacy in formal education: Voter education in curricula and extra cur-ricula; Inclusive Electoral Literacy through informal education channel; Enhancement of participation by special categories of vot-ers; Role of Information and Communication Technology for Voter Education & Feed-back; and Voter Education for Informed and Ethical Voting. He added that luminaries in the field of voter education from across the world are present here; as one of the major contributions to the world of voter education, it is proposed to establish a global knowl-edge network in voter education for which, a draft note has already been circulated to all. The proposed global network envisages that there should be an online platform for sharing knowledge, resources and exper-tise on voter education. This should be, on a continued manner, enriched with the content

contribution by the member EMBs and orga-nizations in a dynamic manner.

He said that to begin with the member-ship will be limited to present participation of the EMBs and institutions participating in the conference and it will be further extended by inviting interested EMBs and organizations and institutions associated with democracy and elections. He referred to the activities which have been proposed in starting mak-ing of the resource i e the Global Network, digital resource repository, the calendar of different activities, quarterly e-journals and newsletters, workshop and information about upcoming events, webinars and discussion forums and sharing of the best practices.

He said that it is also proposed to pre-pare a ‘Conference Resolution’ to cover all these points including systematic, strategic, structured and universal voter education, in-troducing voter education in the school and college curricula, innovation and use of tech-nologies in voter education, a global knowl-edge network on voter education, promoting cooperation and partnership and dedicating sufficient financial and human resources for the voter education. Referring to the to the draft of the ‘Resolve’ that has been circulated to all Distinguished Participants in the Con-ference, he invited comments on the draft and said that if agreed, this draft can be ac-cepted towards the end of the conference.

He concluded that these are the three fold objectives of the Conference on inclu-sive participation, informed participation and ethical participation.

He closed his address with placing on record the thanks to everybody. ◆

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Mr. Ojha began his vote of thanks by ex-pressing sincere gratitude to the Hon’ble Chief Election Commissioner of India, Dr. Nasim Zaidi for his valuable guidance be-cause of which this conference was made possible. He specially thanked the Election Commissioners of India, Mr. A.K. Joti and Mr. O.P. Rawat for their valuable support and unflinching faith in the cause of this conference that is, educating the voters to ensure their thumping participation. He then thanked Deputy Election Commissioner, Mr. Umesh Sinha for steering this conference in the right direction at every step on the way through his sheer vision and commitment towards ensuring the successful conduct of this conference. Much appreciation to

all heads of Election management bodies, Election commissioners and other seniors officials from the various EMBs along with experts and research scholars from UNDP, International Idea, IFES, Malaysian Com-monwealth Study Centre, Department of Asian Studies, University of Haifa, IIDEM (Indian International Institute of Democracy and Election Management) and Ministries, Civil Society organizations, NGOs and Chief Electoral Officers of the States for taking the time out to attend and contribute to the suc-cess of the conference by sharing their valu-able experiences in the ensuing sessions.. He expressed a special thanks to the media organizations for covering this first of its kind International Conference hosted by Election

VOTE OF THANKS BY Mr DHIrENDra OJHa DIRECTOR, ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA


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Commission of India on voter education for inclusive, informed and ethical participation He conveyed a special thanks to UNDP for their contribution and continuous support in ensuring the overall success of the confer-ence besides various divisions of the Elec-tion Commission of India for working tire-lessly to make this conference a success. ◆

0045

Technical Session 1 Day 1

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New Delhi

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19-212016

Electoral Literacy in Formal Education: Voter Education in Curricula and Extra Curricula


046

Chair

HE Mr. J A D BAutistA, Chairman, Commission on ElECtions, PhiliPPinEs

Co Chair

HE Mr. tHoMAs Hicks, Chairman, ElECtion assistanCE Commission of thE Usa.

Moderator

Mr uMEsH sinHA, DEPUty ElECtion CommissionEr, ECi.

Dr. Ms AArti AggArwAl introDUCED thE Chair, Co Chair, moDErator,

PanElists anD faCilitatED oPEning of thE sEssion.

SpeakerS

Ms. kArinE Morin, aCting ChiEf of staff ElECtions CanaDa

Ms. nAtAliA ZAAlisHvili, DirECtor, CEntEr for ElECtoral systEm DEvEloPmEnt rEforms anD trainings, CEntral ElECtion Commission, gEorgia

Mr. Mkss rAtHAnAyAkE, aDDitional CommissionEr, anD mr. samantha JayasinghE, DEPUty CommissionEr, sri lanka ElECtion Commission.

Mr. tiMotHy JoHn courtnEy, first assistant CommissionEr, aUstralian ElECtion Commission. h E mr. thomas hiCks, Chairman, Us ElECtion assistanCE Commission.

Mr. cHAnDrA BHusHAn kuMAr, ChiEf ElECtoral offiCEr, nCt of DElhi.

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mr Bautista, speaking for himself and the Co-chair mr. hicks, stated that it was an honor and privilege to be chairing the first technical session on Electoral literacy in formal Education, voter Education in Cur-ricula and Extra curricula. he thanked the Election Commission of india led by Dr. Zaidi for organizing this very important conference where the delegates are looking forward to hearing presentations from the various coun-tries as well as learning from international best practices that we can adopt in our re-spective countries. With this he invited mr. hicks to say a few words. ◆

oPEning rEmarks By h e Mr. J.a.d BautiSta Chairman, Commission on ElECtions, PhiliPPinEs


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“thank you. i am very honored and humbled to be here today. i flew in early this morning at one o’clock in the morning from Washing-ton DC so if you see me nodding off a little bit just give me a little nudge. it doesn’t mean that your presentations are boring me it just means i am just a little bit tired. i think that all of you heard that there is an election going on in the United states right now and i am catching a whole lot of flak about being out of the country but i think that this was very important for me to be here to attend this conference. i think that it is something that sends a message not only to the folks in the United states but around the world that we take things seriously in terms of our elections processes and i want to thank Dr. Zaidi for

inviting me here today and other folks who helped organize the conference.

the participation of young people is a very important subject and very close to my heart in that i did not have – my parents were not formally educated and were not able to finish even high school but they gave me education and something as we all know of elections. my mom voted for the first time in 1980 and she told me the story of she did not get this opportunity to do that when she was growing up and to always take that role seriously and to participate it as much as you can. i had the distinct honor of telling that story to the person she voted to for Jimmy Carter a number of years ago when we had lunch when he came up to Capitol hill. i also

oPEning rEmarks By h e Mr. thoMaS hiCkS Chairman ElECtion assistanCE Commission of thE Usa

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049have a great chance to tell the story last week in a place that i never thought that i would ever see and that was in Cuba where we led a delegation to go and talk to the Cu-ban people about the way that Us elections are run and to hear how their elections are run as well. so, i don’t want to take too much

time i want to hear from the participants, i’m going to give a brief presentation as well but i’m looking forward to this conference and i know that there are a lot of presentations to be made and with that i shall turn it back over.” ◆


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While heartily thanking the Election Com-mission of india and Dr Zaidi, the Chief Elec-tion Commissioner of india for the invitation and also the organization of the conference ms morin said that she was very delighted to be here today on behalf of the Chief Elector-al officer of Canada to discuss the civic ed-ucation and youth engagement in Canada.

ms morin’s presentation on Civic Ed-ucation and youth Engagement in Canada included the mandate of Elections Canada,

youth voter turnout, teaching Democracy and the recommendations by the Commis-sion to the Parliament.

she said that the Elections Canada have a mandate to educate young future voters on the importance of voting and why voting matters in Canada? obviously voting is an opportunity to exercise a fundamental democratic right protected in Canada as per the Canadian Charter of rights and free-doms. it is very essential in line with all the in-

Canada / MS karine Morin aCting ChiEf of staff, ElECtions CanaDa

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ternational commitment besides developing and promoting civic education to make sure a vibrant and healthy democracy in Cana-da. she said that the Elections Canada also have a legislative support to their electoral literacy programmes at the federal level.

she explained that efforts made by Elections Canada through a series of fo-cused initiatives as per the mandate, have helped in enhancing voter turnout in general and amongst youth in specific. she demon-strated the impact of initiatives through a comparison of voter turnout database for dif-ferent age groups between 41st and 42nd general Elections in the year 2011 and 2015 respectively. While the comparison of the voter turnout data for the years 2011 and 2015 reflects an increase across all age

groups, the largest increase from 38.8% to 57.7% was registered among youths from 18- 24 years. the other age groups reflect-ed the increase of 45.1% to 54.5% in age group 25-34; 54.5% to 61.9% in age group 35 to 44; 64.5% to 66.6% in age group 45 to 54; 71.5% to 73.7% in age group 55 to 64; 75.1% to 78.8% in age group 65 to 74 and 60.3% to 67.4% in age group 75+.

she said that Elections Canada anal-

yses the participation trends in depth. it is seen that since the 90s, trend has been that young Canadians were much less likely to vote as compared to the voters in the higher age groups. the analysis reflects that trends in 2015 elections have shown reversal by almost 19% among young Canadians, yet there is a shortfall of about 10% against overall voter turnout level. further, one signif-icant and interesting fact that emerged from the post-election surveys in the electoral cy-cle is, that the young voters were less likely to take up the habit of voting later on in life. this is very important to understand it, what it means is that if we cannot ensure their interest right from the beginning when they gained the right to vote, it will become more and more difficult to reach them and to con-

vince them to vote later in the future so hence the very importance of civic education. she also explained that an interesting fact that emerged from the surveys among those who actually voted, 20% of them are more likely than non-voters to remember learning about government and politics in high school. this 20% difference was a significant outcome emanating from civic education at the school level. therefore whatever you do to promote

She also explained that an interesting fact that emerged from the surveys among those who actually voted, 20% of them are more likely than non-voters to remember learning about government and politics in high school.


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active citizenship, it is going to help create a generation of young people or more likely to vote.

she went on to explain as to how this was achieved by the EC. she said that Can-ada is a federation and technically, educa-tion is the exclusive jurisdiction and mandate of provinces in Canada. there’s no federal Department of Education and there is no in-tegrated national system of education. they have 13 jurisdictions: 10 provinces and 3 territories and each of them has its own Department and the ministry responsible for the curriculums. however, Canadian democracy and political system is already a part of the curriculum in all of these jurisdictions. so the challenge was, how do we approach this? Elections Canada has a multi-faceted approach, and they work with provin-cial education ministries and departments as well as with provincial electoral management bodies. the latter usually have an easier and better access to the provincial education system.

then the EC have been focusing their effort really on teachers and they work with teachers directly. teachers play a very im-portant role in shaping young minds. But when the EC started talking to teachers, it was found that they are not confident in their own knowledge about Parliament and about the Canada democratic process so they do

not feel prepared to answer questions from the students. therefore it was decided to really work on that aspect and to support teachers if they could focus more on civics by increasing the awareness of and partici-pation in the Canada’s democratic process.

she elaborated that while ‘teaching Democracy’ to youth, the educators serve as builders of civic influences in the classroom, hands-on education programmes in the

class room help in increased political knowl-edge, inculcating of voting as a learning hab-it consequently leading to a higher likelihood of voting. she listed some of the Classroom tools and resources provided under the ini-tiative include ‘Country Democracy’; ‘Choos-ing our mascot’; ‘voting rules’; ‘Canada at Polls’ and ‘history of vote in Canada’. fur-ther the hands-on Programs include Class-room activities, school-wide Events, sense of Civic duty, Evaluation, student vote 2015 national summary and student vote: the

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future of Canadian Democracy.she referred to the voter education

resources; class room tools, simulation kits, student council election kit and a civic ed-ucation programme namely ‘voting rules’ displayed by the EC at the concurrent Ex-hibition and suggested that EC will provide all these resources on their website and the EmB’s also could upload their resources on the concerned website to facilitate knowl-edge exchange on resources for Electoral literacy.

she added that she would like to mention in particular about a very popular program called ‘student vote’, conducted during the electoral campaign in the electoral period because it offers a unique teachable moment to introduce students to the Cana-dian democracy and voting. student vote is a parallel action run by CiviX, an ngo dedicated to civic education for youth and of pre-voting who work collaboratively with the EC. it’s a good hands-on learning pro-gram that gives the students under the vot-ing age a firsthand opportunity to experience the voting process and to build the concept of informed and engaged citizenship. they not only vote and go through the actual process of casting the ballot, but they also study the political platforms. they research on some of the issues of interest during the election campaign and they have a school-wide event and as such it is a very interesting hands on experience. it is also very popular because of media attention and coverage. the students, of course, are very interested and during the last election EC was able to provide this experience in school in every

electoral district in Canada. she said that the participant numbers may not be so important for them if compared with populous coun-tries, but for Canada even a million students from about 6,500 schools spread over all the districts provide a very significant exposure. the EC were looking for some evaluation, but interestingly they elected the exactly the same Parliament as the actual voters. the EC feel that they are on right course. it also confirms the EC’s perception that the pro-gram increased student’s knowledge about electoral process, their political interest, di-alogue and sense of civic duty, which are all linked to future voting. EC feel that it is a very successful example and that has been on for years now and the EC plan to maintain this program in the future.

she explained that Elections Canada studied and analyzed the entire youth En-gagement initiative and the Chief Elector-al officer, Canada has made inter alia, the following three key recommendations to the Parliament with a view to increase civic edu-cation and also how to reach the non voters in Canada better:

allow pre-regiStration of new and young eleCtorS; allow voter inforMation Card aS doCuMentary evidenCe of addreSS: EC does not have that authority at present but the EC would like to work on that. the national register of Electors reflects that al-most ninety percent of Canadian electors are included. however, only 72% of the new and


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young electors in the age group of 18-24 are included. EC would like ensure that they reg-ister these people on time. this can be done if the Parliament accept their recommen-dation. they will do pre-registration activity with their specific civic education programs and once they turn 18, they are automatically rolling into the register and they would get the voter information card, which is the most popular and recognized document. several countries have a pre-registration and the EC hope to achieve this in to facilitate this seg-ment of voters.

allow young people to work aS eleCtion workerS: the second recommendation she said re-lates to the permission to appoint persons under 18 years of age to work as poll work-ers or election officials. as of present, it is very restricted by and large to 18 years of age. only under spe-cial circumstances, with the approval of the CEo that people under 18 can be en-gaged. EC find peo-ple in the age group 16-18 were highly ef-fective and dedicated workers. it might be a good way for the EC to engage them and to make sure that by the time they reach 18, they can be registered.

she said that

currently EC is looking at the renewal of their civic education program and they are consulting with the teachers to better under-stand their needs for moving forward, what they would like the EC to do to improve the civic education program. they also propose to refine their effort to reach specific pop-ulation groups more effectively, particularly students, who still remained among the least knowledgeable about the voting process in Canada. they have already started using so-cial media in the last general election. though initially it meant success, but more in depth examination and exposure for better utiliza-tion of social media as a tool is required for effective connect with young voters. ◆

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ms Zaaishvili, while conveying greetings to the participants, thanked the Election Com-mission of india and Dr. Zaidi, hon’ble Chief Election Commissioner of india for organiz-ing this Conference which gives the partici-pants a platform for sharing their experienc-es in the field of voter education. she said that in her presentation, she would give an overview of voter education in georgia.

she added that in the present days,

elections and electoral processes have be-come a reality in almost all the countries of the world. however, still there are lot of chal-lenges and among them voter low turnout is important. the reasons for low turnout can be numerous and academics and practi-tioners are still discussing upon the factors surrounding low turnout. however, there is one area of real consensus as to how best to tackle low turnout and that is to deal with

georgia / MS. natalia ZaaliShvili DirECtor, CEntEr for ElECtoral systEm DEvEloPmEnt rEforms anD trainings, CEC of gEorgia

CEntral ElECtion Commission of gEorgia


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long-term electoral culture development. she said that she wants to share the practi-cal tools that training center in georgia uses for training purposes. she said that firstly she would speak in brief about what her or-ganization is about. she mentioned that the training Center of georgia was established in January, 2010 as per the amendments in the Electoral Code of georgia. the Cen-ter carries the status of a legal entity under Public law and is an active partner of Central Election Commission of georgia.

the mission of the training center is to encourage development of an environment conducive to the holding of free, fair, trans-parent and participative elections. in line with this mission, one of the most important stra-tegic goals for the training center relates to supporting electoral culture development. on that basis the training center focuses on the precise objectives related to the promo-tion of the intensive informational campaigns in order to reach successful outcome of hav-ing increased activity and credibility among the voters and other stakeholders.

she added that as it stands today, for their institution and in general for georgian election administration, one of the most ef-fective tool and way is to tackle these chal-lenges through civic and voter education. in this context, CEC, georgia and the Center are covering of course, all voters in common besides a lot of the target groups through launching of training programs for young vot-ers like students, pupils at the school, eth-nic minorities, women, disabled people, ac-cused people who are eligible in our country to vote as well.

Evaluation of the programs by au-thentic, independent, international and local organization as well as the data of public opinion research has proved that voter civ-ic education appears to be the element of a crucial importance for increasing electoral awareness, voter turnout and the credibility towards the electoral process. While im-plementing its education initiatives, training center of georgia uses joint approaches through holding workshops, conferences, seminars and well designed training pro-

grams. for the most ben-

eficial learning outcome for enhancing the elec-toral awareness of the voters, a study program in the format based on use of combined meth-odology; practical, in-teractive, including sim-ulations, roll games and participation has been developed by the Cen-

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ter. in regard to achieving the ambitious goal of promoting electoral culture in our coun-try, CEC georgia and training Center also encourage ngo sector to be involved in this important process. the train-ing Center is holding open grant competition for provid-ing financial support to such ngos who have been car-rying out the civic and voter education programs covering all regions of georgia. With a view to ensure that the Cen-ter holds effective and very productive study programs they have designed and imple-mented the concept of education with spe-cial focus on following crucial aspects.

first of all, the study programs are structured in the way to meet the interests of voters. the study courses are delivered by professional group of trainers which are pre-

pared by our training center. the study model is selected in a way that gives the flexibility to deal effectively with large number of trainees. Combined delivery studies are ensured effec-tively as well. Care is taken to ensure that the

training materials are prepared in a manner to simplify and provide a clear understanding of otherwise much complicated procedures. the training materials are translated in the languages of ethnic minorities as well and the video study materials are provided within sign language for the benefit of people with orato-ry and hearing impairment. in order to ensure

the timely availability of the training manuals, they are promptly uploaded onto the website of the training Center in the electronic library. the training Center of georgia launches the active civic and voter education not only in

For the most beneficial learning outcome for enhancing the electoral awareness of the voters, a study program in the format based on use of combined methodology; practical, interactive, including simulations, roll games and participation has been developed by the Center.


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the election period but also in non election period on a continued basis which is more beneficial in terms of learning outcome in long-term perspectives what constitute the formal system of education.

as for the sustainability, the training Center of georgia has established a perma-nent system of civic and voter education that offers programs for different study levels. on primary study level the Project Elections for the young voters is implemented for Public school students of first and second grade. the initiative is aimed at the enhancement of civic electoral awareness among the youth. the project is achieved successfully in co op-eration with the min-istry of Education of georgia and also cov-ers the public schools for ethnic minorities and high mountain municipalities which is one of the biggest challenges in georgia.

on fundamental study level, the study course in the electoral law is delivered by training Center in 19 universities for one semester according to the curriculum that is designed by the training Center. the proj-ect aims at promoting the electoral culture development among youth and to enhance necessary professional knowledge and practical skills of students of law and jour-nalism faculties. on informative introductory

study level, CEC, georgia and the training Center have generated Electoral Culture Development school project which is a very successful innovative project. it aims at in-creasing civic engagement in the electoral process and contributes to the promotion of electoral issues among the citizens. thus, the curriculum of 10 days training developed by training Center gives the opportunity to the participants to receive knowledge on electoral related issues including elector-

al system, election administration, electoral stakeholders, election accessibility and gen-der equality etc. the project, piloted in more than ten elections districts, aims to expand and cover the whole country gradually. at the final level of this system of education is the specialized study level which includes Elec-toral administrator’s Course taken up by the training Center. the course offers study of polling procedures and is aimed at the en-

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hancement of civic awareness and the elec-toral matters and at the same time it contrib-utes to building up of election administration officer database and qualified human re-sources for other electoral stakeholders.

she said that the training Center is also carrying out many other engaging activ-ities apart from a wide range of educational Programs. some of which are listed as be-low: informational voter Campaigns target-

ed at popularization of the elections. students Debate Clubs aimed at moti-

vating young people besides increasing awareness. Debates on various topics are held at the CEC and the training Center on annual basis. the winning team is given certificate of achievement. the latest topic in the student Debates Club included gender related issues in the elections.

CEC has opened also Election Exhibi-tion in its all premises and hosts on per-manent basis, the young voters includ-ing the ethnic minorities with a view to enabling the young people learn about history of the elections in georgia and the role of the elections in promoting democracy.

open-air campaigns are also held from time to time and specifically during elec-tion periods regularly. for example; re-cently they had organized the ‘umbrella campaign’, (see photo) held on a public holiday and dedicated to the capital city tbilisi. the goal of the said campaign was to promote civic activity of the vot-ers for second round of parliamentary

elections, 2016 in georgia. it may be highlighted that lots of voters had been joined under the symbolic election um-brella to demonstrate their readiness of active participation in the election; citizens had dropped in a ballot box, green cards with the inscription ‘an ac-tive voter’. so, participants of the event also received voter awareness-raising materials which were prepared by the training Center including the booklets describing voter procedures.

the experience reflects lots of mean-ingful improvements that have been done in regard to develop electoral environment and to increase electoral awareness.

the training programs provided by training Center of georgia are as-sessed positively by international and a local community although some signifi-cant challenges of course still remain to be faced and addressed.

the Electoral administration of georgia and training Center stand open to hold the networking with partners in order to improve the activities within the format of cooperation they are open to share their experiences to their partners and of course at the same time to benefit from the experiences of other countries.

she concluded by thanking the Par-ticipants for their attention and their valuable time. ◆


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tions While conveying his greetings to everyone,

mr. rathanayake thanked the Election Com-mission of india and Chief Election Commis-sioner of india Dr. nasim Zaidi and UnDP representative for organizing this important conference and the invitation to sri lanka for participation. he said, they were the young-est Election Commission in world but, were the asian Champions in universal suffrage having achieved the same as early as 1931.

from 1955 they have been working as a Department of Elections, but in 2015, they were established as an independent Elec-tion Commission in sri lanka.

they have been keenly working on strengthening the voter Education in sri lanka. he said that sri lanka is comprised of 9 Provinces and 25 Districts for the ad-ministrative purposes with a total population of 21.9 million (2015). Population below 25

Sri lanka / Mr. MkSS rathanayake & Mr. SaMantha JayaSinghe DEPUty CommissionEr, sri lanka ElECtion Commission

ElECtion Commission of sri lanka

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years of the age is 8.5 million and the total number of voters in 2015 is 15.4 million. he introduced mr. s. Jayasinghe, Deputy Com-missioner, the head of voter education unit, and invited him to make presentation on be-half of the Election Commission of sri lanka on the subject.

Mr. SaMantha JayaSinghe:mr Jayasinghe, conveyed his greetings to the participants and said that he would focus on the existing best practices in voter education in sri lanka during his presentations. he said that the election management bodies and related other agencies like the agencies dealing with the policy making or policy im-plementing in the country are responsible for nurturing a democratic nation with political-ly literate and empowered citizens; and the democratic values that promote good gov-ernance.

the competence required to partici-pate in different activities of the society as a future citizen should be given by and large, through education. therefore, he said that his presentation would mainly focus on the formal education in school and tertiary ed-ucation sector so the school children and youth in higher education institutions get adequate opportunities to gain the required competencies to acquire the core values of the society where they are living.

he added that in sri lanka there are five levels of education institutes. the primary level grade 1 to 5, the junior secondary level up to grade 9, senior secondary level up to a o-level, the fourth one is the Collegiate level post study for another 2 years for the

examination of g.C.E.; advanced level that is a qualifying examination of the interest of the national university. then the tertiary lev-el education is mainly done by the national Universities and institutes designed for study on entrance or membership for professional bodies both foreign and sri lankan such as Cima, BCs etc. and local such as sri lanka institute of management (slim) or national schools for Business management (nsBm) and the institute for national apprenticeship and some vocational institutes and technical colleges.

Democracy is a social system and a way of life. it’s also a system of government. the future generation is given the experienc-es of democracy through the formal edu-cation. a research study was conducted in 2003 to assess the status of democratic and civic competencies of students completing grade 9 in the school system with a view to develop a comprehensive long term program to promote democratic culture and produce value through the school education system. there were two interesting findings. one, there is a pre-request to train the teachers on the svEEP curriculum. the second one is the most interesting thing, the schools are placed via svEEP education out to be taught and can be taught effectively and that svEEP education matters a great deal in facilitating student’s civic development, in relation to this ethical electoral participation or the real life it’s very much important. the minister of Education and national institute of Education have prepared and revising the materials and textbooks on civic education from grade 9 onwards as an optional sub-


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ject. so, grade 9, 10 and 11 up to g.C.E. o-level student has the privilege to select, that is not a mandatory thing but they can select the subject as an optional.

he said that ‘school Parliament’ that is conducted these days in the schools is a good example of electoral literacy events under co-curricular and extra curricula for school students. it has been introduced by the authorities in order to give students the practical experience of democracy, a real time experience, the values of the democratic governance and representative democracy, responsibilities and accountability. he said that significance of exercising the franchise value of the vote and the supremacy of law must be appreciated and understood by the young People. their exposure to these par-ticular topics is limited though they may be well aware about the things what is hanging out or what is happening around the world.

the second initiative relates to the Educational Camps on democracy. a con-ceptual understanding of the principles of de-mocracy, participation in the democratic pro-cess and it’s practice while developing lead-ership skills in children both in governmental, non-gove rnmenta l schools, focusing on democracy is an im-portant subject aimed at facilitating universal suffrage. there are

various types of participatory games such as painting competition, essay competition, debates or the fun games, group activities and the lectures also happening in these Ed-ucational Camps. also there are some food courts, play areas, temporary book stalls, they can go and enjoy their life in that area of interest at the camp sites.

he added that for the youth unfortu-nately, they don’t have curricula other than the political science in the university level or for the tertiary level education. however, the Election Commission has taken the steps to promote the democracy in sri lanka through the young generation using the #youth vote sri lanka program with a view to create a broad awareness on democracy amongst students in tertiary level education institu-tions. theme of this particular program is, ‘an informed voter is a powerful voter’. he said that they normally get the help from the youth Clubs and Electoral Clubs and the student

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unions in the university or tertiary level edu-cation institutes for this particular program. this program is mainly conducted as one day formal workshop or training. During the ses-sions participants are exposed to topics like Electoral process in sri lanka the law related to elections as also democracy and impor-tance of the right to universal suffrage. latest activities include the electors in a mock polls trial, vote counting and a declaration of the result. in this, everything is done by the par-ticipants themselves with the assistance of the officials of the Election Commission.

EC provides hands on experience to people about the voting in sri lanka under special workshops as a part of the voter awareness program from 1st of June. there are several campaigns during this period in-cluding brief lectures during this training pe-riod. legal basis of the registration of voters, related legislative provisions, facilitation in registration as voters are important features

besides the publication of the roll register and certi-fication thereupon.

EC sri lanka has also recognized the role of social media (face-book, twitter etc.) and the web based information systems brought into play especially for engaging with the younger gener-ation for information dis-semination on important aspects such as when, where and what of the electoral process. as a

consequence of these initiatives the voter turnout has gone up to 81.52% as com-pared to last two elections with much less percentage of rejected votes.

he mentioned of the following areas of challenges in voter education: Electoral literacy for formal education

sector. assessing voter education strategies. Coverage under civic education curric-

ula. Drops out from the schools; developing

linkages with them. students with disabilities. research support for monitoring and

Evaluation.

he said the Election Commission is working on these areas of challenges and hopes to overcome the challenges soon.

he concluded with thanks to the Par-ticipants. ◆


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mr. Courtney started his address by greeting the Participants and thanking the Chief Elec-tion Commissioner of india and the UnDP for hosting this event and went on to say that it is a great opportunity to come and share experiences and his colleagues ms. lynn White, the Chief information officer and mr. andrew gately, head of roll management, aEC are looking forward to gaining from this unique experience and utilizing the said ex-perience back at home.

speaking on Electoral literacy in formal Education he said that there were many other Electoral management Bodies which are far more advanced in this area and they would look forward to suggestions for improvement. sharing the australian ex-perience, he said that australia is actually a federation of eight states and territories with an upper house made up of 76 senators representing the states and territories elect-ed by a proportional preferential system and

auStralia / tiMothy John Courtney first assistant CommissionEr, aUstralian ElECtion Commission

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a lower house made up 150 members rep-resenting the 150 electoral divisions across australia. Each division is administered by a Divisional returning officer. these officers were the interface with the educational insti-tutions within their divisions until recently un-der the mandate from the electoral act which requires populations to be informed and ed-ucated on electoral matters. however, this is a somewhat outdated model of delivery and over the past five years they have reformed their system substantially.

they have a national Electoral Edu-cation Center based in Canberra that is tar-geting school-aged children from standard six in the age group 11 to 13 years. With the support from the australian government, nEEC run a 90-minute program to educate the students from the schools. the content includes how to vote and related matters. this is a very successful program and gets about a 100,000 to 1,20,000 children per year. But, for a population of school-aged children at about 3.7 million in australia, obviously, it is just insufficient to cover the entire student population of the country. therefore, they have modified the approach and initiated the electoral literacy work online and started a special ‘get voting Program’. he invited the Participants to visit aEC web-site with a view to look at the ‘get voting Program’. the program essentially allows schools to learn about the electoral system through e resources which can be down-loaded, guides, ballot papers generation for use in the system to run elections within the schools; for example elections to the office of a head Boy or head girl or the head of

a school council that a student represents. aEC attempts to instill into the education system for understanding of best practice in electoral literacy in addition to get a degree of consistency and confidence. for exam-ple and one can go to the ‘get voting’ site, generate a ballot paper, order some ballot boxes for a school from there, and actually run a school election for whatever particular office or post they wish to do. similarly the programs with good electoral practices have been developed for slightly older age group of schools in high school from years 7 to 12 of education in age groups 13 to 18 years.

one of the issues, discovered during implementation, was that while the aEC can provide facilities for elec-

toral literacy, but some of the teachers in the schools were not confident and lacked knowledge as to how the electoral system works? they may know for themselves but they were reluctant to reflect the same in the classroom. so, to counter that aEC started professional learning workshops for teach-ers. such workshops are run a couple of times every year for teachers who get certi-fied for teaching about the electoral system in the schools.

further, there are a number of other areas, such as indigenous populations, that require special attention. aEC runs the na-tional indigenous youth Parliament. for this, the aEC approach the indigenous commu-nities; ask them to select representatives to come to Canberra generally for about a week and to participate in an Electoral Education Program. these representatives meet at the


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house of representatives in old Parliament house. they meet with numbers of politi-cians and engage in debate and learn about the electoral system. the aim and intent of the program is that these reps then go back and engage with their communities. While they may not be a part of the formal educa-tion system but it helps aEC to spread the message of electoral participation among the youth. the program was first run in 2012 followed by the years 2014 and 2017. the 2017 program targets the indigenous popu-lation with slightly older age group that is 17 through to 23 years.

there are a number of other communi-ties for which the aEC, have specific com-munity programs. there are a fair number of people who fall outside because of the age of the formal education system. aEC has used the community programs to cover such people that would typically be done through libraries and through community groups. it

uses the same channels that are described for ‘get voting’ and the pro-gram is focused around informing and educating people about the austra-lian electoral system. all these programs are car-ried on under the banner of the civics and citizen-ship school curriculum. he said that in australia they do have a national curriculum and there is a mandatory part that cov-ers electoral education.

he said that the total time required on this topic is 20 hours per year for every high school student within the civics and citizen-ship curriculum and as such the electoral education is a part of that. the time taken is not large but it allows the aEC to get into the schools officially to spread the word of electoral education as they move forward.

summing up he said that he has briefly discussed the way they have approached the subject of voter education in australia. in that way they are seeking to educate youth about the australian Electoral system and because they know that if they can get them young, they will then by default enter and involve in voting which is compulsory in australia and they will run the elections with integrity.

he concluded his speech with thanks to the Participants and said that he would welcome any questions. ◆

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mr. kumar started his presentation by citing that “an educated, enlightened and informed population is one of the surest ways of pro-moting the health of democracy” as nelson mandela said, “for us a young student is not only a prospective voter but also a significant element in our strategy for voter mobilization.”

india is a vast country, with around 124 million students in class 6 to class 12 in half a million schools with six million teachers in 36 states and Union territories with multi-

ple languages. referring to the addresses by hon’ble Chief Election Commissioner and Deputy Election Commissioner in the preceding session, he said that they have already spoken about india’s flagship voter education program called svEEP and its impact in terms of almost 10% increase in voting from 2009 to 2014 speaks for itself. there are clear cut issues when we talk of formal education system, voter registration or voter education. first one is inclusive, so

india / Mr. ChandraBhuShan kuMar CEo, nCt of DElhi

ElECtion Commission of inDia


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that everybody gets registered and partici-pates in the process; the second one means that the voters are well informed and they remain ethical, free from any kind of induce-ment. the presentation is structured in three parts, first one is about electoral literacy with multiple forms in school education system and second about formal education, curric-ula and extra curricula; and third, challenges and opportunities for future interventions.

Electoral literacy is imparted as a part of civic education in schools. Under the na-tional Curriculum framework 2005, name of the subject was changed from civics to social and political life curricula. this meant moving away from colonial mindset and promoting diverse and liberal discourse about electoral participation, about electoral democracy and then at the higher classes they have politi-cal science starting from class nine onwards that is means around 16 years in age.

there are three dimensions of electoral literacy in the context of schools. first one is knowledge of the facts and ideals of democracy, citizenship, the govern-ment and global concerns that the students need to know to be informed to participate in civic, so-cial and political life. next come the skills, the ability to navigate the rules and processes of citizenship and governance in our society, a kind of critical engagement and then the value which is the demo-

cratic ideals and commitment to those ide-als that motivates civic commitment in terms of equality, liberty, making choices. school education in india is diverse and vibrant. Education is in a concurrent list; therefore both, the Union government as well as the provincial governments, have the opportunity to legislate on the subject and also design curricula. at the Union level, we have a na-tional Council of Educational research and training (nCErt) that develops curricula for school education. the curriculum presently in force, the national Curriculum framework, was developed by the nCErt in the year 2005. state Council of Education research and training (sCErt) and the state Educa-tion Boards either adopt or adapt this model syllabus and textbook based on this national curriculum framework or develop their own syllabi and the text books with in the ambit of the nCf. at present, 18 Provinces use nCErt textbooks designed at the Union level and rest 18 have adapted this partic-

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ular set of textbooks. he said that close to 125 million students in india, are under tar-geted under the aforesaid electoral literacy program. in class 6, 7, 8, the curriculum in-cludes what is government, what are the key elements of the democratic government and class 7 it covers equality and focusing on politi-cal equality through the electoral literacy issue that how election makes everybody equal? in class 9 and 10 the syllabus in-cludes more structured topics on electoral pol-itics, how politics is a structured in the country in the democracy and how it has moved from 1947 and at the senior secondary stage which is a class 11 and class 12 it covers election and representation. thus, the syllabi cover various aspects of elections including a discourse on functioning of Elec-tion Commission of india, its challenges, how it has evolved as one of the pioneer election management bodies in the world.

the class room discussions and de-bates, in terms of knowledge and interac-tions, include topics such as constituencies, and structuring of the same, right to vote and the universal adult suffrage for the citizens from the very beginning. the students are encouraged and engaged in the questions and discussions on elections, elective posts and related matters at different levels. Per se the elections have become an integral part

of the democratic life and figure in the exer-cises that school children are engaged. no one can imagine a situation where a gov-ernment would disrespect the verdict of an election. similarly no one can imagine that a government would be formed without hold-

ing elections, in fact regularity and period-icity of elections has earned fame for india as a great democratic experiment. he added that complexity of the elections; issues and challenges in the electoral process are also a part of the interactions and the dialogue in which school children are also engaged. the school textbooks are made very interesting, engaging and user friendly for young minds.

ECi’s connect with the schools is rather old. nvD provides regular and peri-odic engagement and includes taking

of a pledge by every student. this event is observed all over the country. Concept of Campus ambassador, ‘sankalp Patra’ are


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some of the key activities which not only engage the young people, their parents are also linked in the process for electoral par-ticipation.

Cartoon component serves for edu-tainment in voter’s pledge in the school which reads as follows: ‘We the citizens of india hav-ing abiding faith in democracy hereby place to uphold the democratic traditions of our coun-try and the dignity of free, fair and peaceful elections and to vote in every election fear-lessly and without being influenced by con-siderations of religion, race, caste, communi-ty, language or any inducement’. this is done on every year on 25th January at the time of the national voter’s Day Celebrations.

‘Campus ambassador’ facilitates the voter registration, creating awareness on continued basis at election time and be-yond. they act as ECi’s ambassadors at the school/college level at the time of election or otherwise. it is a kind of a regular feature it is so much more institutionalized. some of the snippets are kind of graffiti made by the school students, college students at the time of voter registrations. this is a kind of rangoli which is quite a colorful exercise which is done by our students at the school level during the election time and one of the world’s largest rangoli in Uttar Pradesh, it

was created by more than 770 students to attract students. this is the briefly the nature of edutainment for the students which in terms of engagement.

speaking of the challenges, he said that the main challenge relates to teachers education, their curriculum, developing their syllabi, to inform them as to how they are go-ing to undertake activities at the classroom level. also it involves, embracing and uphold-ing the values of electoral democracy. it’s not only the knowledge but also the skill and the values which need to be developed. the curriculum redevelopment and engagement is being examined. supplementary reading material which is proposed to develop for the school level, also developing scenario based engagement which will help the stu-dents to understand and to appreciate the value of electoral democracy. he said that they have also set up an election museum in-augurated by hon’ble Commission; the mu-seum will provide opportunity to the students to learn through continued engagement un-der a formal arrangement. this formal insti-tutionalized engagement is envisaged under svEEP Phase iii.

mr. kumar concluded his presentation by thanking the participation. ◆

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While conveying his greetings to the Partic-ipants, mr. hicks said that he would speak first about how the Us election system works for two reasons; first because it is very differ-ent from most of the countries where it’s very centralized. the Us system, in comparison, is much decentralized and that there are 9000 jurisdictions across the country basically ad-ministered on the local level. then there are two Election Commissions, one the federal Election Commission which deals with the

financing of elections and the Election as-sistance Commission which deals with the administration of elections. he said that he wanted to speak about his agency itself that is the Election assistance Commission, which came up under the help america vote act, 2002 after the election in the year 2000. he said that he is the only person in the en-tire United states who has worked on the bill in terms of its drafting, overseeing it when he worked in the United states Congress and

uSa / h e Mr. thoMaS hiCkS Chairman, ElECtion assistanCE Commission of thE Usa

U.s. ElECtion assistanCE Commission


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now as the Chairman of the Commission to oversee its implementation. he said that the new act addresses a number of things mostly the new standards, new voting equip-ment and improving the overall functions of Elections by itself. the act was signed by President george W Bush in 2002 and the Commission under the new act is a four member Commission. he said that the President nominated him in 2010 and 2011-2013 and by the time he was sworn in it was 2014 and he took the office in 2015. he said that besides him as the Chairman, there are three Commission-ers in the EaC mr. mat-thew masterson, the vice Chairman and Christy mcCormick.

Continuing his pre-sentation, he said that voter education is something very true to his heart. voter education for youth is an area of concern for them and to alleviate this con-cern they have made substantial improve-ments in this area including financial support under the help america vote act, 2002. he said that the EaC was created with a man-date inter alia to educate school and college students on elections and encourage college students to work in election administration.

Colleges also receive grants from the EaC for voter education and engagement programs. Colleges apply for funds to build their own programs also and EaC supplies funding for certain selected programs. in all

$3,177mn. have been well spent under the program. 89 grants have been awarded.

he said that the voter education is carried out by educating college and high school students through participation in the process itself. grant based programs are taken to various schools and districts. EaC works in collaboration with non partisans and organizations such as ‘rock the vote’

or interestingly with organizations such as WWf, a wrestling organization which did a lot in terms of ensuring that youth were be-ing registered. But the WWf opted out be-cause, the head at that time ran for the Us senate and there appeared to be a conflict of interest.

he said that the EaC has firm opin-ion that the youth are key instruments to the United states election process. therefore all efforts are made to involve them in terms of poll workers and for educating them, the EaC recently updated the poll worker man-ual. it was the first time in 10 years the EaC found that they wanted a larger participation

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in the electoral process through the help america vote College Program (havCP). the EaC College Program allows students to become familiar with voting processes and technologies, and once eligible to vote they would be more comfortable with their civic duties. in effect, the young poll workers are instrumental to the United states Elec-tion administration process

he added that the youth were really engaged in the process and in helping out and so forth. however, they have a problem with engaging youth in terms of those young people who go off the school when they’re asked to be poll workers as the duty is usual-ly for 12 hours 7:00 in the morning to 7:00 at night. many of them are tired leading to lack of interest and engagement at that point, but the EaC is trying to get them more involved in terms of education and spirit.

recently more efforts have been made for a larger connect with the schools, that is going to the high schools themselves and try to get the students more involved in the pro-cess. however, as stated earlier, education in the United states is much decentralized,

the EaC provide a lot of information out to the students but it is all administered on the local level. financing of the education-al institutions is essentially done at the local level with little federal financial support. But,

a whole lot of funds go into educating the students in terms of getting involved in the electoral process. the institutions are pro-vided necessary grants for the mock Elec-tion which involves the students and their families. he mentioned names of some of the important recipients from around the coun-try who received the financial support. the mock Election Program recipients for the year 2010 as follows: secretary of state of the Common-

wealth of kentucky; franklin, ky Polk County auditor’s office; Des

moines, ia Washington secretary of state; olym-

pia, Wa montana secretary of state; helena,

mt league of Women voters of oregon

Education fund; salem, or rhode island and Providence Planta-

tions; Providence, ri michigan government television; lan-

sing, mi seminole County supervisor of Elec-

tions; sanford, fl

During his presentation he made special mention of the following programs:

‘kids voting’, a 2010 grantee; a nonpar-tisan, grassroots-driven voter education program committed to creating lifelong

Recently more efforts have been made for a larger connect with the schools, that is going to the high schools themselves and try to get the students more involved in the process.


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voting habits in children, increasing family communication about citizenship, and encouraging greater adult voter turnout.

Project Citizen: aims to promote an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of de-mocracy in the United states and other Countries. Produces curricular material. supported by congressional national network of state and coordinators.

youth and govern-ment with basic phi-losophy ‘Democracy must be learned by each generation.’

aims to empower youth to become ethical leaders and responsible citizens.he said that they

recently held a contest on coworker practices and related topics in terms of making sure that the students can be more involved in the process. While shar-ing information about winners of the contest, he emphasized that the need for continuity of the program in the interregnum between the elections.

he said that they want to start this up again in January because when he said that both President Bush in 2001 and President obama in 2009, invested heavily on voter education especially for the young people. so, he was hopeful that whoever the next President becomes, will continue that tradi-

tion and invest in the process so that they can continue to fund this education process for the young people besides the ongoing projects in this field in the interest of vot-er education of the young people. he said that the EaC want to make sure that they educate youth early and he cited his own example once again “as i – speaking from experience when my mom brought me to the polling place when i was very young and then my father also working with my mom to

ensure that he voted as well.’he concluded that education is the

key to a successful relationship in terms of elections so that if one starts when one is truly young he continues on with the prac-tice. and if one starts off when in 40s and 50s, he is less likely to continue on. he con-cluded his presentation with the observation that ‘the Future of our Electoral system is in our schools’ ◆

075

Technical Session 2Day 1

14:30 - 17:00

New Delhi

OctOber

19-212016

Inclusive Electoral Literacy: Reaching out to those outside schools and other marginalized groups (PwDs, women, people working in unorganized labor sector, tribals etc.)


076

Chair

HE Mr sArBAst MustAFA rAsHiD, ChairPErson ihEC, iraq

Moderator

Mr viJAv DEv, DEPUty ElECtion CommissionEr, ElECtion Commission of inDia.

preSentationS

inDonEsia: Mr. HAsyiM Asy’Ari, CommissionEr

myanmar: Mr. Aung Myint, CommissionEr

nEPal: Dr. AyoDHEE PrAsAD, ChiEf ElECtion CommissionEr

namiBia: Ms. notEMBA tJiPuEJA, ChairPErson

Pakistan: Mr. AltAF AHMAD, DirECtor

tUnisia: Ms. kHAMEyEl FEnnicHE, CommissionEr

intErnational iDEa: Ms sHEri MEyErHoFFEr

inDia: Ms rADHA rAturi, CEo UttarakhanD

delegateS depart to Call on the hon’Ble preSident ofindia at raShtrapati Bhawan

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thE rEPUBliC of inDonEsia

h E mr asy’ari started his address with thanks for the opportunity for presentation on the topic of inclusive electoral education through informal education channel in indo-nesia. he conveyed his special thanks for Dr. nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commission-er of india. of indian Election Commission for invitation to the Conference.

he started his presentation with brief general information on indonesia and their elections followed by the education for vot-

ers on inclusion in indonesia. indonesia is known as a maritime archipelago country with 17,000 islands. the country has 34 provinces, 514 regencies or municipalities and 7,160 Districts, 83,164 sub-districts or villages with a population of 237 million (Census 2010). he mentioned the electoral details as below: Probably the most complex electoral

event globally 479,183 polling stations across 17,000

indoneSia / he Mr. haSyiM aSy’ari CommissionEr


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islands 34 provinces, 514 regencies/munic-

ipalities, 7,160 districts, 83,184 sub- districts/villages

4 million polling station officials 700 ballots, 2,450 ballot designs 19,700 candidates, 1 presidency, 532

legislatures Population: 237.56 million (census

2010) 2014 voters list: 187,847,512 2014 turnout rate: 75.11%

he said that they have three types of elections viz, the Parliamentary Elec-tion including regional representa-tive Council, People’s representative Council Peoples regional representa-tive Council;

the Presidential Elections Concurrent governor and regent/may-

or Election he added that indonesia has 3 kinds of

elections, the Parliament Election, the Pres-idential Election and the Concurrent gover-nor and regent or mayor Election or local election. the past 11 elections starting with the revolution era held in 1955, transitional new order in 1971, 5 in the new order from

1977 to 1997 and one in the reformation era in 1999 were all conducted on the ba-sis of close list proportional representation; and then what is known as the Democratic Consolidation, 3 elections in the years 2004, 2009 and 2014 have been held under the new voting pattern. he said that substantive legislative changes were made for elections during the period 2011 and 2016.

explaining the comparative pic-ture, he said that indonesia has a multi-party political system. there were in all 24 political

parties in 2004 election compared to 44 in 2009 elections, with 38 national parties and 6 local parties in aceh province; and in the 2014 elections there were only 15 political parties with 12 national and 3 acehnese parties. gender quota was fixed at 30% women in the candidate list in 2004; with 30% women with at least one woman within 3 candidates in 2009 and 2014 elections.

number of voters has increased from 148 million in 2004 to 188 million in 2014. voting turnout was 84.07% in 2004, 71% in 2009 and 75.11% in 2014 elections. no. of polling places was 581,393 in 2004, 519,920 in 2009 and it has gone up to 545,778 in the year 2014.

‘Reaching out to those outside schools and other marginalized groups (PwDs, women etc)’, he said that they have two patterns for voter education. In the non-election period they have the civic education and in the election period it means the voter education.

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Speaking on the structure of general Election Commission (kPU) in indonesia, he said that it is a permanent body with 7 members and charged with the responsibility of conducting national and regional elections. Provincial level and regency or municipality also they have well structured approach. then they have sub-district Election Committee, voting Committee and Polling station officer. in the overseas, they have Election Committee and then polling station officer is based un-der their Embassies or Consulates general in overseas.

Coming to the special topic, voter Education: ‘reaching out to those outside schools and other marginalized groups (PwDs, women etc)’ he said that they have two patterns for voter education. in the non-election period they have the civic edu-cation and in the election period it means the voter education. goals of voter education are increased participation, increase in literacy politics and increased volunteer service. they have two target groups, cluster one includes general young voters, women, disability and marginal in the religion, the second cluster in-cludes focus on contextual or special issues such as low regional voter turnout; region-al potential conflict of election violation and Conflict region. materials for voter education are based on the institutional, election, po-litical participant and other referral materials for democracy. for the inclusive voter edu-cation through informal education channel, their strategy includes educating a broad range of stakeholders and “special” groups of voters about the importance of being a

voter for women voters, for first-time voters they have “kPU goes to Campus”, for voters with disabilities, they have Braille template ballot paper, technical guidance for acces-sible polling station for voters with disability and voter education for people with disability. then they also have the voter education for potentially marginalized voters.

he added that they forge synergy with Civil society organization (Cso) as per fol-lowing strategies/activities: Establishment of voter Education me-

dia Center (vEmC) in collaboration with national Csos

improved information on election pro-cesses and engaged the public more directly in voter outreach

Distributed kPU materials; hosted inter-active public discussions; and supported multi-media voter education campaigns

Consolidated guidance and lessons products learned from the 2014 elec-tions.kPU is committed to conduct accessi-

ble election for voter with dissabilities.as an institution that has authority for


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conducting the election, kPU makes efforts to protect and aided the citizens with dissa-bilty rights in politics, by : issuing of regulation on inclusive affir-

mative action for voter with dissability. Cooperate with other institutions and

stakeholders concern on dissability.he said that several states have taken

affirmative action for voters with disability. the first draft regulation has been processed and the kPU is working with stakeholders to collect response and recommendations re-garding how to make an accessible election

for voter with disabilities. kPU has an moU with ‘PPUa Penca’ to provide a better acces-sible election. kPU is already enhancing in-teraction with disability organizations for for-mulating kPU regulation for disabled voters.

regulation formulation StagekPU regulation for accessible election: one of the Election socialisation target is voter with disabilities (regulation no 5 of 2015 on socialization and Citizen Participation);

Polling station has to be accessible for voter with disabilities (regulation no 6 of 2015 on norms, standards, Procedure, Procurement and Distribution of Election logistics); kPU giving access to citizens with disabilities on public debate for President candidate (reg-ulation no 7 of 2015 on campaign); Physical and spiritual requirements cannot deter a cit-izen with disability on any candidacy (regu-lation no 9 of 2015 on Candidacy). this is as per laid down the procedure for regulation drafting process stage for the purpose of public involvement.

voter registry Stage:the fixed voter list should include all eligible indonesian citizens without exception. the kPU regulation about voter regis-

try mentions that the voter information must include the information about the type of disability a voter has.

information about the type of voters’ disabilities is very important to provide proper service during polling. in second stage voter registry, they

have some coding number of voter with dis-ability, they have coding in the voter list.num-ber of voters with Disability has to be reflect-ed in the voter list as per the list below:

1. number of voters with physical impairment. 2. number of voters with vision im-pairment. 3. number of voters with hearing impairment. 4. number of voters with mental disability.

this helps in planning at the Booth

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level.socialization stage voters with dis-

abilities are one of kPU’s main priorities for targeted voter education, besides first-time voters and female voters. Electoral information dissemination was

provided through the mass media and kPU’s website.

kPU has a module and socialization and voter education materials especial-ly for disabled voters.

kPU has a specific budget to educate voters with disabilites (brochure, leaflet and other education materials)

kPU collaborate with tv station in broadcasting President and vice Presi-dent debate, where in the debate there is also sign-language interpreter.

voting StagekPU regulation explain things as follows: in a notice to vote at the polling stations

should be mentioned the ease for peo-ple with disabilities in voting at the poll-ing stations.

table / board of voting booth and for marking the ballot, and table with empty space beneath it for people with dis-abilities using wheelchairs.

the entrance and exit polling at least 90cm sized in order to ensure access for people with disabilities motion using a wheelchair.

location of polling stations should be easily accessible, in a flat place that is not rocky, not hilly, not thick grassy, not jump over ditches and exhibits the stairs.

regular monitoring in respect of certain

items is carried out for illustrationit is necessary to have accessible

pathway to the polling stations and the loca-tions must be accessible by wheelchair user PwD’s and the elderly.

Based on monitoring of the implemen-tation, corrective measures for facilitating PwD’s are taken and there has been a con-siderable improvement. Pathways for access for PwD’s to polling stations have been im-proved. inaccessible pathways have been reduced to 30% only as compared to ac-cessible pathways which now stand at 70%. location wise, he said, there has been im-provement and inaccessible locations have come down to 32% as compared to 68% locations which are accessible by a wheel-chair. similarly, 84% polling stations have entrances of the size 90 cm width and above that guarantee access to wheel chair user and only 16% are less that 90 Cm width. ac-cessible exit (90Cms and above) from poll-ing stations has increased to 81% and 62% of the polling stations have enough space to manoeuvre within their precincts.66% have voting booth table with an empty space un-derneath for easy access for the wheelchair. for visually handicapped 65% of the polling stations have Braille template. he said that the kPU have designed and produced elec-toral information dissemination materials in Braille format. institutional structures and the Cso’s are in place and provide coop-eration and help to PwD’s. kPU have got ‘special award’ for its work for protecting and fulfilling the political rights of the PwD’s.

he concluded his presentation with thanks to the Participants. ◆


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mr myint started his presentation with greet-ings to the participants and thanks to the indian Election Commission and United na-tion Development Program for organizing the conference.

he said that in myanmar developed and implemented a comprehensive voter education programme in 2015 elections and in the process provided all the information including technical information that ensured the voters were aware of electoral proce-

dures and events. they covered 33.4 million eligible voters under the programme.

he said that there are total of 118 eth-nic languages in myanmar which posed a challenge in imparting voter education, not only in the urban areas but also in rural areas to ensure that messages were understand-able. speaking on the voter education needs for myanmar, he said that the voter education developed by the UEC included voter rights and responsibilities, how to vote, electoral

MyanMar / he Mr. ayng Myint CommissionEr, Union ElECtion Commission of myanmar

Union ElECtion Commission of myanmar

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system, commandment system, voter registration, transparency, credibility and impartiality of the elections. voter Education fol-lows two modes: Cooperation with stake-

holders: government in-stitutions, Csos, political parties, and voters to dis-seminate posters and pam-phlets in local communities

mass media: social media, radio, television, newspa-per, Journals voter education resourc-

es include a series of technical and motivational material devel-oped for the voter list display. the technical information, the pamphlets, information about the need to check the voter lists as well as the form to submit for correction of the voter list is all a part of electoral registration pro-cess and the voter education.

the motivational poster, cartoon provide the reason for people to participate in the 2015 election and the need to check the voter list. it also provides the dates of the display peri-od. these are some examples of the techni-cal information provided to voters for voting on Election Day. they include a pamphlet outlining the voting process, number of can-didates and other Election Day materials for example the time polling open, poster outlin-ing the polling process.

UEC also developed 6 videos for vot-

er education. videos provide overview of polling procedure; procedure to check the voter list, information about civic knowledge, information about election hours and voter list procedure. additional materials were de-veloped for stakeholders that provide larger information than the video, poster and pam-phlet. this includes four operational manuals developed for UEC that were also shared with stakeholder, polling manual, electoral


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dispute resolution manual, operation check-list manual, advance polling manual as well as 9 frequently asked question guides that provide separate information for voters and other stakeholders on a series of topics in-cluding voter list display, candidate nomi-nation data list, electoral dispute resolution procedure and result management among our tasks. UEC developed fortified voter ed-ucation material and they need to ensure that these materials were delivered to local com-munities’, they used two strategic modes

to conduct delivery of voter education, one stakeholder engagement and the other mass media as mentioned above. in all 608 offi-cials coordinated voter education with vot-er education with 509 members from 352 Cso’s located in 250 townships during the Preliminary voter list Displays. further, 110 UEC officials coordinated voter education efforts and shared electoral information with 368 members from 253 Cso’s and 212 representatives from political parties during the national Display and campaign period.

materials distributed by the stakehold-ers was an incredible achievement in 2015 elections with distribution of about 3.5 mil-lion pamphlets by the Cso’s, in addition

to about 0.7 million pamphlets and posters at the time of preliminary voter list display. about 0.3 million posters in ethnic languag-es were also distributed. a similar exercise was carried out at the election day voter ed-ucation.

mass media was used for voter ed-ucation by utilizing social media and sms messages through mobile phone network as well as using traditional mass media plat-form like tv, radio and newspaper. this al-lows UEC to reach voters across the nation

through regular broadcast on tv, radio and coverage in newspaper. radio and news-paper communications were also translated into ethnic languages by local media outlets to further derive ethnic inclusion. a total of 8 sms’s were sent to 29 million mobile user through telephone network in myanmar, the messages sent provided a date about the voter list display and Election day. UEC also developed a facebook page where voter education material including videos, post-er, pamphlet and frequently ask question guide were made available at this page as well as other pages made a large impact on youth. Previews were viewed by 1000s time and through online additional over 10

UEC developed fortified voter education material and they need to ensure that these materials were delivered to local communities’, they used two strategic modes to conduct delivery of voter education, one stakeholder engagement and the other mass media.

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million views occurred. then UEC developed the 2014 - 2018 strategic plan for reforms in planning and orga-nizing of elections under the reforms initiative. the plan has 12 pillars and of these one pillar is devoted to civic and voter education that is Pillar 8: strategic goal to create awareness of the electoral process amongst all citizen and an increased participation through coordinated and effective civic and voter education campaigns.

millions of copies were print-ed and distributed but communities needed sustained messaging to en-sure the inclusion of women, youth, persons with disabilities, and ethnic minorities. as such myanmar has a population of 33.4 million voters and this includes a diverse population with: over 17 million women over 2 million persons with dis-

abilities 118 Ethnic languages many first time voters

how can the UEC use existing voter education materials to promote in-clusion across a diverse society?

strategic Pillar 9 covered Promotion of in-clusive Participation with a strategic goal: to encourage more inclusive participation from women, ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, and internally displaced persons (iDPs) who each face different challenges and barriers to participating in the electoral process. for this the UEC worked with the

partners as per highlights given below: 9 national meetings with 60+ Csos 2 rounds of regional meetings with

800+ Cso representatives UEC distributed voter education mate-

rials to Csos for conducting voter edu-cation in communities.

Csos held trainings and meetings in communities to discuss electoral events, like voter list display, how to make corrections to the voter list, how


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to mark a ballot properly, and polling simulations.

trainings were held in local languages and focused on inclusion of ethnic pop-ulations, persons with disabilities and women.

voter Education targeted persons with disabilities, with messages that demon-strated methods for persons with dis-abilities to vote as well as piloting 18 polling stations that were accessible for persons with disabilities.

Csos developed the “awareness Booklet on Disability inclusive Elec-tions” and a “how to vote guidebook for persons with disabilities” that were based on UEC materials and regula-tions.

72% of persons with disabilities that voted at that polling stations thought that they were accessible.

myanmar has 118 Ethnic languages.voter Education Developed in 16 Eth-nic languages

faqs developed in 7 Ethnic languages videos developed in 8 Ethnic languag-

es radio Broadcasts and newspaper ad-

vertisements translated by local media outlets.

Csos used materials developed by UEC and did translations as well as held trainings in local languages. the levels of information on elections

increased substantially from pre election to post election period as per the indices de-veloped and the benchmarking developed by the concerned agencies. for example 93% voters understood the correct marking of the ballot paper in post election (Jan 2016) as compared to 40% awareness before elec-tions (June, 2015). 8% people knew where to vote prior to the election as compared to 93% post election awareness level. simi-larly 10% persons knew how to check their names in the voter list prior to elections and post election, 80% people knew this.thus the voter education programs had visible im-

pact and the UEC felt proud in deepening the democracy.the UEC also learned about terms lesson that translate the material on dispute resolution into 11 dif-ferent ethnic languages includ-ing shan, Chin, kayah, kayin and katuni-ya language.

mr myint concluded his presentation by thanking all the participants. ◆

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hE mr yadav started his presentation by expressing his thanks and gratitude to the Chief Election Commissioner of india for or-ganizing this grand international conference on the electoral and civic education.

he said that nepal has a population of 26.4 million with a literacy percentage of around 66%.nepal is now a democratic country, a federal republic country and in ne-pal, though democracy practice started since 1950, but still they are young democracy.

they are practicing new democracy and their geography a very diverse. according to the new Constitution, they have 7 provinces and they are very rich in socio-cultural diversity with more than 125 socio-cultural diversity groups and likewise they have over 126 lan-guages. his presentation included features such as the background, establishment, gender inclusive initiative, opportunity and challenges in a fairly comprehensive manner.

he said that the Election Commission

nepal / h e Mr ayodhee praSad yadav ChairPErson, ElECtion Commission of nEPal

ElECtion Commission of nEPal


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in nepal was first established under the in-terim Constitution of 1950. Democracy was first established in nepal in the year 1950 and the first election was held in 1959. Elec-tion Commission became an independent Constitutional Body in 1966. they have five commissioners and one of them is the Chief Election Commissioner. he said that for 30 years, they had autocratic Panchayati rule in practice and then, 1990 they had that resto-ration of democracy and gained multi-party democracy system. the electoral process started afresh and a new look voter educa-tion also started in nepal since 1990. they had first elections to Constitutional assem-bly on april 10th, 2008 and the second time they had Constitutional assembly elections in 2013. and their voter education pro-gramme, started in a programmed way since 1990, helped the voter turnout to go up to around 80% in 2013 Constitutional assem-bly election. it was historical, and there may be many reasons, but one of the basic and fundamental reasons for increasing the turn-out was the voter education.

he said that after 2012, systematic and organizational voter education system started in nepal at the Electoral Education information Centre (EEiC). Ever since it was established in 2012, it is enhancing partici-pation of the voters in the electoral system, process and procedures. Expansion of EEiC at regional level has been achieved at two of the regional offices of the ECn out of total 5.

he said that the EEiC displays include vision and election related educative mate-rials. they have mini theatres since 1952, which cover the electoral, democratic, and

other events covered in 25 minutes pre-sentations. then they have the interactive room, totally technologically based interac-tive room and mock elections also that they conduct. since 2012 to august 2016 a total number of 23,817 visitors (male 53% and female voters 47%)) have been to the EEiC.

he added that as for capacity enhance-ment, Election Commission of nepal is implementing its second strategic

plan (2015-19). Capacity building program is one of the main pillars of the strategic plan. regular capacity building programmes have been conducted for election staff and other stakeholders. Bridge model training programmes have also been conducted which include introduction to electoral man-agement, gender and elections, access to election process, election disputes, political finance etc. training to Deaf Citizen, Disable persons, Women and minorities have been focused. specific BriDgE modular train-ings have been conducted (introduction to electoral management, gender and election, access to electoral process, electoral dis-pute resolution, political finance etc.)

he stated further that resource manu-als have been developed. training to PwD’s, women and minorities has been focused as one of important areas. inclusive electoral activities are displayed periodically and regu-larly. voter education program: basic features of voter education program include some of the traditional methods of voter/electoral ed-ucation, very common in rural areas in nepal such as ‘Dohori geet’, cultural dances and the music as a practice during the elections.

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he added that voter education program is also technology based but art is best, disad-vantaged and marginalized groups focused, female group focused, based on wider con-sultation with the stakeholders, regular up-dating and upgrading voter education as a continuous process.

he further stated that they have started social assisted teachers training also in view of the fact that scope and influence of so-cial assisted teachers on the nep-alese society is very large. ECn has conducted electoral educa-tion to social assisted teachers of secondary level school. Both, the private schools and the commu-nity level, social assisted teachers are the participants; it has been started since 2013. 27 districts out of 75 completed training to social assisted teachers which will have a lifelong impact on them. a comprehensive resource book has been developed, officials of commission visit community and private schools and take sessions and class-es, conducted in all districts by concerned district election offices, at present election commission has focused not only on how to vote, but also why to vote?

voter education through different means, print media, print materials, audio-vi-sual, radio, t.v. channels, mobile etc for a wider outreach to address nepal’s vast geography. EEiC have also started a pro-gramme for social moblizers and in each village they have a social mobilizer. through social mobilizers they also conduct voter ed-

ucation. focused on imparting voter educa-tion at local level communities, major role is played by them in voter registration and issue of a voter identification card, distribution pro-cess in Ca election 2013. During the afore-said Ca elections, the following electoral and voter education activities were carried out(i) a special voter Education committee

was formed at the central level under the chairmanship of a Commissioner.

(ii) a District level voter Education Com-mittee is formed under the Chairman-ship of Chief District officer.

(iii) voter Education volunteers (vEv) from minorities and women group at the local level, at least 2 persons mobilized for a vDC or municipality Ward. major role was played by such persons in voter registration and voter identification card distribution process in Ca Election, 2013

(iv) these volunteers were directed to im-part the voter education to marginalized


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groups, first time voters, the illiterate or blind, Dalits and women.

(v) they were mobilized for 2 months and worked under the supervision of DEo office. During this election the, highest vot-

ers’ Participation was achieved at 78.4% which in itself is a record in nepalese elec-toral history. officials of the Commission vis-it community and private schools and take sessions conducted in all districts by con-cerned District Election offices

at present, Election Commission has focused not only in how to vote but also why to vote besides focus on imparting the voter education at local level communities.

gender & inclusion initiatives include regulatory framework gi Policy 2013 gi strategy 2015-2020 gi action plan i, 2015 and gi action

plan ii (Jan. 2016 to July 2018) institu-tional framework

gi Coordination Committee gi focal persons (hq and 75 offices);

gi Coordination Committee gi Unit gi related grievances (female officer at

hq) gi related grievances (female officer at

hq) he said that efforts have been made

to developing ECn as a gender sensitive organization and attempts made to ensure gender equality not only in the office but also among the voters and the candidates.

regular interface with stakeholders is maintained which includes

Periodic and regular consultations with relevant stakeholders: Women, Dalit, Disabled, Excluded and minorities

review of formal (school) education curriculum. Updating and developing of electoral education curriculum in con-sultation with the relevant stakeholders.

orientation to major stakeholders about new electoral provisions: political par-ties, Csos, media etc.successful implementation of the first

strategic plan and implementation of reforms according to the second strategic plan, con-tinued inputs to improve inclusive education have improved participation in elections.

he said that in the light of Constitution-al commitments, the ECn addresses gender and inclusion related concerns raised by key stakeholders such as: Women, Dalits, Back-ward Communities, Backward regions, in-digenous and Ethnic Communities, madhesi, Persons with disabilities, other minorities. in this process, draft electoral laws, policies are envisaged to be gender-sensitive and inclu-sive with a view to help mainstream gi within political forces.

among challenges they have socio-cul-tural discrimination and poverty that hinders women participation in the electoral process. many communities care more of livelihoods than informed participation in elections. Po-litical parties participating in elections are not able to address gender and inclusion factors to a substantial extent. lack of adequate gender and disability friendly infrastructure for polling also poses challenges.

he concluded his presentations with thanks to the participants. ◆

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h E ms notemba started her presentation with special greetings from namibia to Dr. nasim Zaidi, Chief Election Commissioner and to all the Commissioners of the Election Commission of india and to the UnDP, and she said that she is very much honored to be here representing the Electoral Commis-sion of namibia and conveyed greetings to all distinguished delegates.

she said that the namibian Electoral Commission was established through an act

of parliament of namibia. the population of namibia stood at 2.1 million of which they have 1.3 million registered voters. the Dis-ability report of 2011 shows, that there is a representation of an estimated 4.7% (about 98000) of the total population who have some type of disability.

their legal framework provides for women participation at local authority level and the ruling party has introduced a Zebra system of representation at parliamentary

naMiBia / exCellenCy MS. noteMBa tJipueJa ChairPErson, ElECtion Commission of namiBia

ElECtoral Commission of namiBia


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level whereby every second person on the party list for the national assembly has to be a woman. there is no legislative compulsion in the national council election for women participation.the representation of women stood at 41.6% in 2014 national assembly election, at 23.8% in 2015 national council election and at 48.2% in 2015 local author-ity elections.

marginalized communities are groups subject to suppression, literally affected by poverty compared to other groups in

namibia. she added that the namibian constitution provide for the establishment of the Electoral Commission of namibia as an exclusive body to direct, supervise, man-age and control the conduct of elections in namibia. the electoral commission has been established under the Electoral act of 2014 with the objectives to organize, direct, supervise, manage and control the conduct of elections or in referenda in a free fair inde-pendent, credible, transparent and an impar-tial manner.

she added that ECn regards voter ed-ucation as very important to ensure maximize the participation in all elections and also to achieve universal coverage of the elector-ate. she explained that the voter educa-tion became a legal mandate of the ECn in 2009. minority groups, mainly three; the san

people, the ova Zemba and ova himba, are disproportionately affected by poverty compared to other groups. Unfortunately in absence of a proper database it is difficult to make a realistic assessment about these groups. it is important for the Commission to launch special educational campaigns, aimed at new voters, women, people with disabilities and marginalized communities in-cluding internally displaced persons. the act provides for people with disabilities.

she added that they were conduct-

ing four types of elections where voter education is covered for all the groups. the presidential elections follow majoritarian system, national assembly elections follow the proportional representation with party lists, regional councils follow first-past-the-post and finally the local authorities follow pro-portional representation and party list sys-tem. the last two national elections that is the presidential and national assembly were held in 2014 and regional council and local authority elections in 2015.

she added that the constitution of namibia in chapter 3, article 17 provides for that every citizen who has reached the age of 18 has right to vote. further, article 10 of the Constitution confers equality before law to all persons in namibia. section 49 of the Electoral act mandates that ECn to conduct

ECN regards voter education as very important to ensure maximize the participation in all elections and also to achieve universal coverage of the electorate.

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voter and civic education. Prior to 2009 they did not have anything in the act with regard to voter education. therefore, prior to 2009 the voter education was done as a strategic objective and not as a legal requirement. the namibian electoral process is aligned with the Un Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities and also the set of principles and guidelines governing the democratic elections. they have their national Disability act (no 26 of 2004) that stipulates that the government shall ensure that disability as-pects are included in all relevant policymak-ing and national planned activities. namibia has also adopted the racial Discrimination amendment act num-ber 26 of 1990 and 1998.

she added that they have, as a country, ratified the Un Decla-ration of rights of in-digenous Peoples in 2008, and is signatory to Un Convention on the Elimination of all forms of racial Dis-crimination and the Convention on Elimina-tion of all forms of Discrimination against Women.

our national voter Education Policy from 2014 to 2019 guides the conduct of voter education in namibia. government also formulated policies and legislation to address the needs of people with disabilities and marginalized communities.

the Electoral Commission of namibia

conducts voter educations through number of modes and these are face to face public meetings with communities. they use vari-ous electronic communication mediums, dis-tribution of printed electoral messages such as posters, pamphlets, flyers and the use of radio and television.

she added that they have a number of projects involving people with disabilities, the youth and other marginalized commu-nities to ensure full participation of these groups through the mainstreaming project of the ECn which includes a number of ini-tiatives such as assessment on the under-

standing and accessibility of PwD’s in the electoral processes conducted in 2012. the main findings of this project were that 60% of PWDs in namibia cannot fully participate in elections unless they are assisted and certain infrastructure provisions are made to meet their specific needs. it is noted that the legislative provisions under the 2014 act provide for deaf as well as blind people to be assisted by a person of their choice at the


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time of voting and to also have any voting procedure explained to them during that time and also to have those procedures posted in the polling station as provided in the Bill of rights under the above said legislation.

one of the findings of the assessment by the ECn was that an estimated 53% of registered voters with disabilities have vot-ed consistently throughout all the elections conducted in namibia. at this juncture, it is also important to note that ECn introduced a ‘touch and feel’ Evm voter education strat-egy implemented in 2014 which reached 96% voters. it was predominantly to intro-duce the Evm in namibia based on the in-dian voting machines by Bharat Electronics. she said that they had a number of mock Elections in the country. they introduced this Evm in the by elections with the main thrust of that campaign to maximize the vot-er experience in terms of actual working of the ‘touch and feel’ Evm before the 2019 elections in the country. this was a very suc-cessful voter education campaign and they were able to cover 96% of the electorate.

she continued that another campaign called ‘stop waiting’ with focus on women voters, PwDs and marginalized communi-ties was also operated. they have the mock elections for two local authority elections in 2014 and four by-elections. she said that it is important that they are the first country in africa to have introduced the electronic vot-ing machine and they had important strat-egies for the initiative. Production of Braille and tactile ballot covers to ensure secrecy of the vote for voters with visual impairment is one of their initiatives prior to the use of the Evm’s, this was for the paper ballots.

she said that they have customized Evm’s supplied by Bharat Electron-ics of india. the customization in-

cluded ensuring that they have Braille print on the ballot unit, so that voters with visual impairment are able to read Braille for their help. they can vote using the Evm with the Braille on the ballot unit. those who cannot read Braille, as the law provides, can request assistance from a person of their choice for

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casting a vote.they also recruit persons

from marginalized communities and PwDs as voter educators, to assist the ECn in voter education campaigns. With regard to stake-holder engagement, they have continued partnerships and co-operation with organizations that deal with disability issues as well as marginalized communities in the country, ngos and so forth, translation and production of voter education information in user friendly format such as Braille, audio and sign language also for deaf voters.

she stated that for proposed reforms, they interact with the ministry of Education regarding the development of syllabus for learners. they intend to enhance their infor-mal education channel through developing inclusive strategies on voter education such as the development of an adult education curriculum through the ministry of Education to promote adult learning on voter and civ-ic education. they also aim at enhancing a product packaging and service delivery for PwDs that is production of voter education materials in Braille and sign language for PwDs. they to intend holding a national dia-logue with other institutions that are provid-ing services to these communities in order to adopt best practices in service delivery mechanisms.

in conclusion she said that even though the Electoral Commission of namibia has made significant strides in ensuring inclusive electoral literacy for PWDs and marginalized

communities, there is still room for improve-ment as advocated under the proposed re-forms and many other EmB’s have done lot of work in this area and the ECn would be happy to learn from the good practices of other countries. she said in conclusion that she has the following recommendations for the ECn: there is a need for an overall assess-

ment on the effectiveness of the ECn voter and civic education campaign with emphasis on inclusivity for special focus groups.

learning from other EmBs on best practices for inclusive voter and civic education;

review their national voter Education Policy placing more emphasis on main-streaming activities; and

Collect data on the number of PWDs and marginalized communities for plan-ning purposes. she concluded her presentation with

thanks to the participation. ◆


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tions mr altaf ahmad started his presentation by

greeting the participation and, on behalf of the Election Commission of Pakistan and himself, congratulating the Election Com-mission of india and the hon’ble Chief Elec-tion Commissioner of india for conducting such a productive conference on sharing the experiences.

he said that one of the important di-mensions of democracy is the political

engagement that encompasses both the willingness and capabilities of a citizen to participate effectively in self rule. Election Commission of Pakistan is changing its focus from voter information, to moving to-wards electoral education. they had voter education program in 2010 and now devel-oped the next phase of that programme that is the civic and voter education based on po-litical and psychological dynamics.

pakiStan / Mr. altaf ahMad DirECtor, ElECtion Commission of Pakistan

ElECtion Commission of Pakistan

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political dynamics in Political dynamics, they believe that one of the biggest events a country’s history could witness is the elections, and therefore for elections, the entire system must contrib-ute to reach the goal of fair, transparent and credible elections. Based on this realisation and the premise of political dynamics, the Election Commission of Pakistan involved all the organizations to contribute to the civic and voter education programme. Banners, display cards and other modes of election related messages are carried by these organisations for awareness of the people.he briefly mentioned the participating organizations as follows:

public utilitieshe said that the voter education programme mandated that the util-ity bills must carry the messages of Election Commission of Pakistan either in graphics or in the words for electoral participation. he men-tioned some of the organizations such as WaPDa, sui gas, and PtCl and said this was made applicable to all such or-ganizations.

national highways and transporthe added that all the national highways and the motor ways, key junctions and prominent spots of toll plazas have to display the civic and the voter education messages of Elec-tion Commission. all the transit vehicles, the buses, the long route big buses which go through the entire country carry bold mes-

sages issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan. this is for the first time they have introduced these things.

religious institutionshe said that the religious affairs Depart-ment of Pakistan has also been involved in dissemination of the messages from the Election Commission of Pakistan. religious institutions from all the religions propagate the messages of the ECP for electoral par-ticipation in their sermons.

local governmentshe added that the local government has been given a very special assignment of tak-ing the public, particularly the illiterate peo-ple into confidence on the importance and strength of the vote, that messages have been devised.

postal ServicesPostal services of Pakistan, Pakistan Postal services issued a commemorative stamp carrying the message of Election Commis-


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sion of Pakistan in graphics, in pictures as well as in words. it served as a big connect the common people, especially the illiterates who could make use of postal services.

provincial health Ministriesall the Provincial health ministries have been taken into confidence as also the family plan-ning centres as on one hand, they are giving services to the public especially women and on the other hand they are the ECP’s prop-agators. they are carrying the messages of the Election Commission of Pakistan, ‘the strength of vote, the importance of vote, the worth of vote.’

national database and registration authority another initiative in voter education is that every person registering himself in Pakistan for citizenship, must have a briefing of the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Boys, scouts and girls guide associa-tion, in schools and in colleges

the boys, scouts and girl guides have been allotted districts all over Paki-stan for carrying the messages of the ECP to people. the ECP makes ar-rangements for their trips to respec-tive districts and localities.

agriculture Pakistan has agriculture communities who meet periodically and a team of officers including women is attached to each of the communities.these communities conduct meeting every 6 months but by now on the direction

of the Election Commission, they are con-ducting meetings of all the communities and every second month. the district election commissioner of Election Commission par-ticipates in the meetings and engages them in voter education messages of the ECP.

private telecom operators.Pakistan have a very big number of mobile users, therefore, free of cost messages are sent to the people and calls in the election, when the election time is near, calls are made from the telecom operators asking the people to come out and contribute to the democratic strength.

pakistan railwaysPakistan railways infrastructure is utilized for carrying the message of elections in a big way. the railway stations, the ticket collec-tors, the ttE’s etc are a part of the dissemi-nation of electoral messages.

Civil aviation authoritythe Civil aviation authority and its infra-

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structure, the airports also carry ECP’s voter education messages and as such now be-coming one with the Election Commission of Pakistan for the strength of the vote.

psychological dynamicshe said that for the first time they have set up District voters Education Committees (DvEC) in Pakistan. they have 125 dis-tricts in and all the districts have DvEC’s now. these committees have representa-tives from the religious people of the area,

civil society, local media, the administration, and as such from all sections of the society. thus they have a wide representation and large assembly of people at the meetings which carry a large coverage by media. the main topic of deliberation and the message to people is the importance of vote. this is a psychological connect with the people of the area. this in other words is outreach at grassroots level and that is a success story.

he said that they observe 7th Decem-ber as national voter’s Day. they celebrate this day by holding functions, debates, com-petitions and essay competitions amongst students. in the parliament we they also conduct a debate in the parliament and the

President house, the Prime minister house on the national voters day. thus the national voter’s Day is a big event for them and they take public on board for this celebration.

he added that the holding of aware-ness and orientation sessions in colleges and universities through debates, cultural and sports activities is an important feature.

he said that they have introduced the exordium of 8300 where any mobile user can send his CniC free of cost to obtain the exact detail of his vote. in case a person is

not registered as a voter one will get infor-mation to that effect and the fact of ‘not reg-istered’ will be appear as a message and the registration can be then effected through the prescribed procedure.

the voters are given complete detail of the exact location of their vote, location of the polling station and this all can be ob-tained through use of mobile application. he concluded his presentation by reaffirming the vital role of voter education in empower-ing the voters.

he closed his presentation by thanking the Participation. ◆

He said that for the first time they have set up District Voters Education Committees (DVEC) in Pakistan. The main topic of deliberation and the message to people is the importance of vote. This is a psychological connect with the people of the area.


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h E ms fenniche in her presentation on elec-tions and persons with disabilities started with a brief introduction on tunisia. she said that tunisia is a young democracy that began with arab spring. first elections took place in the year 2014. the election commission (the higher independent authority for Elec-tions) was also set up in the same year. she said that it was like taking on the sea while still constructing a boat, but they are the first country in africa to hold elections which are

excellent as far as integrity goes and in the world list they are 27th country who have held elections with maximum integrity and they received the geo Baxter award for this.

she said that the Election Commis-sion has undertaken awareness programs regarding for voters much before the elec-tions and also during the elections. their campaigns are more or less traditional in nature with conventional media such as tv and radio besides workers in the field who

tuniSia / MS. khaMeyel fenniChe CommissionEr

tUnisia ElECtoral Commission

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carry the awareness programmes of the ECt. their approach in the field for aware-ness campaigns is essentially participative with ngo’s and Cso’s for transmitting their messages. they have also carried aware-ness campaigns through the internet, digital means and the social media. she added that the tunisian people took time to convince themselves that they have to register before they vote.

the voter education programmes for students and young people are carried out in collaboration with the ministry of Education. in this process, they have redone syllabus for dif-ferent classes to include terms like democracy, elections and all the vo-cabulary surrounding it.

they have targeted women in the rural areas for educating them about elections and also pro-vided them the identity cards for facilitating their electoral participation and also make them aware that they cannot vote without the said iD card. she added that they also have programs for motivating youth to vote be-sides giving them knowledge to vote. PwD’s have been given recognition under article 48 of the Constitution with equal right to vote. further, under article 131 of the electoral law, polling stations are prepared to enable persons with disabilities as per their require-ments to exercise their right to vote. and of course, we have to maintain their right to

secrecy when they vote. according to the Who report for the year 2013, PwD’s rep-resent 13.5% of the population in tunisia. People with visual impairment, blindness also have the right to vote. they also have a right to add assistant to help them move around the polling booth and assist them in casting their vote. in case the person is not to able to bring in assistant who could be a spouse, a dependant or a parent, he has the right to ask the president of the polling

station to assign a present voter from the au-dience to help him exercises his right to vote.

she added that they have started us-ing sign language interpreters at their press conferences or at all the meetings on elec-tion process. appropriate materials and documents to all civil society organizations working in this field with the Commission have been distributed. Documents in Braille that explain the electoral process step by step have also been distributed. a guide for PwD’s explaining all the phases of the elec-toral process including voting, the rights of


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persons with disabilities on the voting day and the definition of the most important terms has also been distributed.

she continued that they have created posters meant for illiterate people. the post-ers may be graphic and explain the whole

process of elections and also in Braille so that they can address both the persons who cannot read and persons who are blind. she shared some examples on the screen show-ing documents including graphics, cartoons and easily comprehensible materials which were distributed in all polling stations across the country and which were displayed for awareness and knowledge of persons. Car-toons and cartoon strips demonstrate each stage of polling in a very clear manner and it is like a mock election taking place on paper to all the civil society organizations. Display-

ing an example on the screen she said that all these spots and the cartoon strips have been posted on youtube channel and are also demonstrated and put up in the exhibi-tion hall next door.

she mentioned that they have done

significant work with the ministry of educa-tion regarding the accessibility of various schools in tunisia and found out there were many schools which were very difficult to access as far as polling was concerned. so they planned in such a way that such schools can also carry out and follow the polling process.

she concluded her presentation by thanking the audience. ◆

The posters may be graphic and explain the whole process of elections and also in Braille so that they can address both the persons who cannot read and persons who are blind.

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starting the presentation with greetings to the participation, she said that though she is presently posted in nepal but since she was from Canada, she would like to open her presentation by looking at a Canadian example that, she felt, would demonstrate the importance of informal voter education.

she said that in 2004 the premiere of Canada’s province of ontario announced that its Citizens assembly would be es-

tablished to look at the first-past-the-post electoral system and recommend possible changes. the proposed changes were to be voted upon at the next election three years down the road concurrent within a referen-dum. the citizen’s assembly was composed of a 103 regular citizens. a lot of effort was put into identifying a person from every con-stituency in the province of ontario to sit on this constituent assembly. the assembly was

idea / MS. Sheri Meyerhoffer hEaD of mission for intErnational institUtE for DEmoCraCy anD ElECtoral assistanCE in nEPal (intErnational iDEa)

intErnational institUtE for DEmoCraCy anD ElECtoral assistanCE


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50% men and 50% women, a lot of work went into finding the right people and that they were regular citizens and they spent 7 months learning about electoral systems or the different ones deliberating as to which one might fit best for the province of ontario. they held some public consultations and at the end of that six months they recommend-ed a mixed first-past-the-post in public Pr system which is of good interest at the time as nepal is looking at a very, very similar

model which they’ve since adopted.the proposal for the new electoral

system was defeated in the referendum by an overwhelming majority of 63% against a change. What is interesting about this story is as to why it was defeated. as such it was a proposal developed by a group of ordinary citizens carefully well selected but was de-feated by its majority of voters. as per the analysis by some Canadian experts, it failed due to a lack of understanding of the pro-

posed new system by the voters. While the government of ontario actually implemented and launched a voter educational campaign, they launched it only three months before the election and it did not inform the public well about the substance of the proposal or the competing arguments in favor or against it. as a result, at the time of voting the poll showed that the public understanding of the referendum question remained very low with 47% of respondents saying they knew noth-

ing at all about the new system, 41% said they knew a little and only 12%that they knew a lot. in this example, a lack of understanding by majori-ty of the public translated into a lack of confidence to vote for change. she said that many of partic-ipating countries in the conference may not be established democra-cies. she said that she understands and knew the experience as she is

a Canadian Citizen whereas a person who works in nepal is in transition. it is hard to get people to move in transition, if they do not understand what they’re moving towards.

she said that the experiment failed because of lack of understanding and the resultant lack of confidence; lack of confi-dence and the resultant lack of smooth dem-ocratic transition. from this failed experiment one could take a lesson that it’s not enough for the government or a select group of ex-

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perts (albeit citizen experts!) to understand the transition plan. a democracy requires citizens to understand and take ownership to effect change and this is how she want-ed to start her presentation to say why voter education matters. she said that electoral reform is an important program for Cana-da, she hopes that the government and the Elections Canada would make a robust voter education programme as an important com-ponent of the reforms exercise to achieve the desired outcomes.

she said that she has been working in nepal at grass roots level for over a decade and she was happy that nepal has adopted voter education as an important part of the electoral system.

referring to a diagrammatic represen-tation of voter education channels in nepal, she said that voter education channels pre-sented in a very simplistic diagram shows the formal and the informal channels for voter education. a focus on the right-hand side of the diagram refers to the informal channel. it shows that international iDEa in nepal works in training and interactive programmes through audio and visual means to connect.

for imparting voter education they work with ECn for training and work with other organizations to conduct interactive programmes. for training purpose, ECn

started with building resources in demo-cratic governance, elections and adopted BriDgE modular trainings in 2008. inter-national iDEa joined ECn along with oth-er departments such as ifEs and UnDP. ECn and its partners conducted research on global best practices for voter education to identify modules most applicable in the context of nepal. in this process, eleven (11) BriDgE modules out of 24 were selected and customised for application in nepal.

since 2008 development and delivery of these modules have been continually sup-ported and updated by international iDEa and its partners. 7of the 11 modules focus on Election implementation, hence more of government actors in the process. the 5 of

the 11 are more focused on election partici-pation.. modules focused on election imple-mentation are as below: introduction to electoral management Electoral dispute resolution Political finance Polling, counting and results voter registration Pre-election activities Electoral systems

modules focused on election partici-pation are as follows: voter education; gender, inclusion and elections

A democracy requires citizens to understand and take ownership to effect change and this is how she wanted to start her presentation to say why voter education matters.


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media and elections access to the electoral process Electoral systems

she said that electoral systems is common to both the sets of modules is really important in nepal so that everybody under-stands electoral systems well. to illustrate this, she said that the iDEa as well as ECn are confronted with the belief among many people that the first-past-the-post members are elected and proportional representation members are not elected. voter education is intended to dispel inaccuracies in percep-tions which can otherwise affect the quality of democracy because it undermines a cer-tain number of the members of parliament.

Bridge training audiences include the ECn and government staff to enhance the capacity of electoral management. the train-ing for key electoral stakeholders includes media, political parties, observer groups, civ-il society organizations etc as these are the groups that encourage greater participation and involvement. training for security sector agencies includes nepal police, the armed police, the national intelligence Bureau and the army as they are important to help pre-pare for safe and secure elections.

focused training for disadvantaged groups specifically focuses on women, Dalit,

madhesis, muslims, indigenous peoples etc. this is to promote inclusion and to make au-dible the voice of these historically marginal-ized populations; and finally special training is held for differently able persons. they have developed modules for persons with hearing impairment for non auditory comprehension very specific to deaf persons as their number is rather high.

in addition to supporting the ECn in capacity building among government actors and citizens international iDEa conducts interactive programs through Civic initiative Centers (CiC’s) to deliver informal voter ed-ucation to people at the district and regional levels. the CiCs are managed in collabo-

ration with nepal’s legislature Parliament secretariat and implemented through a na-tional level ngo.

there are 14 centers across the coun-try established in 2010 and continue to op-erate today. these 14 centers are distribut-ed across the 7 of nepal’s new provincial boundaries and are located in 3 ecological zones that is terai (7), hill (6) and moun-tain (1). CiC’s have delivered interactive programmes in all of nepal’s 75 districts and reached all village Development Com-mittees. role of these centers in the certain regions in nepal, where they are more con-

Voter education is intended to dispel inaccuracies in perceptions which can otherwise affect the quality of democracy because it undermines a certain number of the members of parliament.

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cerned about the content of the constitution, is very relevant. the CiC’s have delivered programs to in all 75 districts down to the village level. the objectives of the specific initiative centers are to increase understand-ing of constitutional provisions including those related to elections, electoral system, civil and political rights and to support civic education at the local level on various topics including voter and election related matters.

multiple target audiences at levels, the district and the village include political parties, civil society, representatives from marginalized communities including women, dalits, indigenous peoples, madhesies, reli-gious minorities besides professional asso-ciations (academics, journalists, doctors and

engineers). the government officers (district level) and community organizations at village level are targeted. further, academics, jour-nalists, teachers and students are also im-portant part of the audiences.

the role of the CiC in voter education relates to some important aspects such as the right to vote, electoral

system, proposed constitutional provisions related to the elections and the electoral sys-tem. in this context the role of the CiC’s is fo-cussed on informing people at the local level on the right to vote and the importance of

voting, the electoral system, proposed con-stitutional provisions related to elections and the electoral system, and the basic features of the provisions of the constitution of nepal 2015 related to elections and the electoral system. their second role was to prepare people to participate in the official public opinion collection on draft constitution in July 2015 and to prepare citizens at the local level to comment on proposed electoral leg-islation, regulations, policies and practices.

CiC activities for the period 2010-16 included conducting interactive workshops, national tv and local fm radio broadcast, distribute printed resource materials and build up resources centers and libraries in CiC offices. the objective was to prepare

voters for participation in dialogues. iDEa provided resource materials but the chal-lenge and the issue was language. With well over 125 languages and dialects in nepal, generation of resource materials in as many languages was prohibitive on costs and chal-lenging on logistics. in managing projects, if you select a certain number of languages, you invite criticism from those languages you don’t select especially when you are aiming at the confidence building interactive dia-logues. it was a difficult area to manage and the challenge was shared with the ECn.

CiC’s also have libraries and user cen-

With well over 125 languages and dialects in Nepal, generation of resource materials in as many languages was prohibitive on costs and challenging on logistics.


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ters at the district level. she said that during her recent visit to a center and her findings on the visit reflect that teachers from the vil-lages come to the district level to use CiC district center resources and learn about voter education. CiC also have audio-visu-al or internet resources what these teachers take that back out to their students.

the monitoring of these initiatives relating to the centers and impact assess-ment of these activities have demonstrated enhanced awareness and understanding of nepali people on the electoral system and election processes and their roles as vot-ers, increased confidence of the people in democratic electoral processes that is an understanding the power voting particularly among marginalized groups.

in her concluding remarks she said that the international iDEa supports ECn in the following areas of informal voter educa-tion initiatives:

(i) BriDgE training to support the

ECn in the area of voter/electoral education to: minimize the invalid votes and maximize

the voters turnouts strengthen and upgrade the manageri-

al capacity of the electoral management body

(ii) CiCs – civic education to increase voter confidence Citizen participation in elections informed democratic decisions as

demonstrated by the lack of voter un-derstanding over proposed new elec-toral system in the community province of ontario.she said that voter confidence is key

to moving democratic transitions forward. nepal still far has been successful in creat-ing a high-level of order confidence achieved through extensive and effective voter educa-tion.

she said that the international idea hopes to continue to support ECn and

other government and non-government actors to provide voter educa-tion in the years ahead .

she closed her presentation with thanks to the participation. ◆

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starting her presentation with greetings to the participation, she said that she rep-resents Uttarakhand, a very marginalized state (province) in india. it is a hill state, completely hilly areas, bordering nepal and China; having two international borders and they have a clear perception of what it feels to be marginalized. Presenting a picture of a young girl she said that she is from a wan-dering forest tribe called van gujjars. this marginalized group has been engaged by

through concerted initiative and included in the voter list. she referred to the ECi’s mot-to ‘no voter to be left behind’ and said that the motto is serving as an important guiding principle for the Chief Electoral officers of the states. she said that as provided in the Un Declarations as also the Constitution of india, no discrimination is permissible and all the eligible voters have to be included in the electoral rolls. article 327 of the Con-stitution gives our parliament the power to

india / MS. radha raturi ChiEf ElECtoral offiCEr, UttarakhanD

ElECtion Commission of inDia


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make provisions regarding the elections and therefore, the representation of People act, 1950 was born, under which all of us are do-ing this election management work.

section 19 of the rP act provides that every person who is not less than 18 years of age and is ordinarily resident of a constit-uency shall be entitled to be registered as a voter. this ordinarily resident carries a very interesting definition. the Election Commis-sion has taken very proactive measures to facilitate voter registration. india with over 855 million voters is a world in itself. india has about 1.77 million homeless citizens (census, 2011). these homeless citizens have no roof over their heads and many of them just sleep on the pavements, living at

railway stations, under the flyovers, inside pipes and similar places. the challenge for the ECi was, how to enroll them. the com-mission has tried to enroll each and every citizen by giving guidelines that if a home-less applicant does not possess any proof of ordinary resident, the Booth level officer of the concerned area has to physically verify the ordinary residents by visiting the address given in form 6 for enrollment. as per the guidelines of the ECi, a Blo, in such cases has to visit and verify at night and see as to where that person is sleeping. so, all these homeless people or migrant laborers who

don’t have any home have also been includ-ed in the roll after due verification. this is how the voting rights especially the migrant labor are protected. this is true of all the migrant populations. thus india provides a good ex-ample of complete inclusive participation.

the svEEP has shown us the way where large sections of the electorate, not covered by any formal education system, who are physically cut off from the main-stream, have to be brought under the am-bit of voter education and these have been reached through the civil society organiza-tions, volunteers, different welfare depart-ments of the government.

the svEEP has set forth the goal to have every eligible citizen on the elector-

al roll and to have every enrolled voter vote voluntary to ensure widest electoral partici-pation. she said that there are a number of active Csos, like ‘ashray adhikar abhiyan’ , operating from Delhi who give iD cards to homeless people and pavement dwellers and they help them to become voters. sim-ilarly they have an active Cso by the name rural litigation Entitlement kendra, working in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. they have ensured that all the van gujjars, the wander-ing tribes in the forest are given their voting rights. van gujjars, as already stated are a very marginalized group.

“This ordinarily resident carries a very interesting definition. The Election Commission has taken very proactive measures to facilitate voter registration.”

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innovation in voter education comes both from the svEEP Divi-sion, ECi as also from the different Chief Elec-toral officers of different states. inclusion of the marginalized such as il-literate is achieved under engagement through a number of informal meth-ods like puppet shows, street plays, jingles, t.v. spots, films, rallies, hu-man chains and wom-en self help groups etc who have been actively involved to include the marginalized groups in-cluding women voters.

she further dis-cussed some of the svEEP initiatives taken up in uttarakhand. she explained that two girls (twin sisters) have been named as state icons state icons in the last election namely tashi and munshi. these girls have climbed 7 international moun-tains that is, the entire highest mountain peaks. she shared a picture of another state icon kavita, an acid victim (attacked about 5 years back). she is also blind, but she is very active and carries the confidence of a very empowered girl. similarly the puppet shows are used to engage the electors of different age groups. all thes all are the infor-

mal methods. the ECi has also taken a lot of initiatives for elderly citizens. these include, personal letters to them so that they come to the booth, as very often they find it very difficult to come.

village awareness groups have been formed, young volunteers, ‘matdata mitra’ or ‘friend of voters’ have helped in higher awareness and encouraging electoral partic-ipation. further, they have given all the basic


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minimum facilities at the polling stations. she said that the ECi has reached out

to rural illiterate women also. an moU with the national literacy mission authority of india has been signed to ensure voter edu-cation in 500 villages across 15 states and through the ‘Preraks’ or volunteers. all the women have been reached in such villages. transgenders have also been included, with special focus and in this maharashtra has done very good work.

she explained some of the special ini-

tiatives taken up in Uttarakhand. they have a national institute for the visually handi-capped at Dehradun, where a special booth is set up during every parliamentary or as-sembly election where visually handicapped voters can vote without any help, the voters are given are given a Braille dummy bal-lot sheet, where the candidates’ names are printed in Braille, they can feel that and vote without any assistance. the electronic voting machines also have Braille print, so the blind voters can touch the Braille figures and vote independently.

she added that the ‘anganwadi’ wom-en also work as Booth level officers to engage women voters and this has been very helpful. similarly they have used ration shops, fair price shops as facilitation centers because women come to buy rations there. they have all been enrolled through these facilitation centers. they are mapping all the disabled voters with every booth. spe-cial camps for enrollment of disabled voters have been set up for the enrollment during the ongoing special summary revision. she

said all efforts are made to achieve a completely inclusive registration.

With the help of some pic-tures of blind voters voting of Deh-radun district she said that they belong to wandering tribes called ‘ghoomantus’, who have also been enrolled with special efforts. they do not stay in any one place, but since they have been here in the city, they have been enrolled like ‘van gujjars’. she said that they keep wandering from village to vil-

lage; they go up in the summers and come down to the lower villages in the winters. migratory ‘Bhotiya’ tribes in district Chamoli and district Pithoragarh; primitive tribal group called ‘van rawat’, whose numbers are de-clining, they are going to be extinct as there are only 283 voters from this primitive trib-al group. ,they have all been enrolled. thus special efforts have been made for inclusion of all the marginalized sections of the society as per guidelines of the ECi.

she concluded her presentation with thanks to the participation. ◆

113


09:30 - 11:25

New Delhi

OctOber

19-212016

Enhancement of participation by special categories of voters: Outreach for Defence Personnel, Diplomatic Mission Personnel, Polling Personnel and Overseas Citizens

The Proceedings of inTernaTional conference on VoTer educaTion for inclusiVe, informed and eThical ParTiciPaTion

114

Chair

Mr O P rawat, Hon’ble election commissioner, india and HE Mr aHMEd Issac Hassan, cHairperson, iebc, Kenya

Moderator

Mr sudEEP JaIn, director General, eci

Presentations

australia: Ms Lynn wHItE, assistant commissioner

iraq: Mr. safaa IbraHIM JasIM, commissioner

lesotHo: Ms. LIqabang LydIa MacHELI, civic education officer.

mexico: Mr. PatrIcIO baLLadOs, executive director

tHe us: Mr. tHOMas HIcks, cHairman

Mr Vasu MOHan, ifes, reGional director

india: Ms PadMa angMO, director, eci

launcH of survey cum competition for overseas indian electors

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dr. ms aarti aggarwal introduced the chair, co-chair, moderator, panelists and facilitated opening of the session.

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ms lynn started her presentation by thanking dr. Zaidi the chief election commissioner of india and the undp, new delhi for inviting her to participate in this conference. she said that dr Zaidi had made the first visit to india for them as memorable especially out of yesterday’s meeting with meeting the president of india.

she said that as briefly mentioned yes-terday, voting is compulsory in australia for any australian citizen 18 years or older. at

the last federal election in July 2016, an esti-mated ninety-five percent of eligible resident population was registered to vote. of these, 92% actually voted, which means about 14.6 million people. maintaining continued high levels of participation is very important to them in australia, in practice a compulso-ry regime derives a high level of compliance, but it does not ensure that an elector is a responsible party to involve and vote to en-gage in electoral process.

australia / Ms. lynn White assistant commissioner, australian election commission


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she explained that the australians overseas, however, do not have the same obligations. they are not required to com-pulsorily vote and involve in the electoral process. aec has specific requirements for overseas electors that they are to maintain their own involvement in vote. if an elector is going overseas for a short period of time and plans to return to his address in austra-lia, one can still enrol and vote. if a person is already enrolled, he has to complete and file an ‘overseas notification form’ to facilitate his vote in the federal elections. However, if a person is not enrolled, he may enrol to vote for federal elections from outside australia and for this, he has to file application in req-uisite form. further, if an australian citizen is living or working overseas and he intends to return to australia within six years, one can register as an overseas elector. if a person is already enrolled, one may apply up to three months in advance or within three years af-ter one leaves australia. if a person is not enrolled and has been overseas for less than three years, he may be eligible to be enrolled if he is an austra-lian citizen aged 18 years or above and intending to return within six years. this can be done by aec website where many of aec online facilities are maintained. at pres-ent there are only about 20,000 overseas elec-tors registered out of a

roughly 1,000,000 australians living abroad. providing services to overseas australian is a challenge, the law states that if a person is registered as an overseas voter and one does not vote, one is removed from the role and re roll once such a person returns and lives in australia. this is significant for aus-tralians as they generally engage in elector-al process in which to vote particularly so for electors who are overseas serving their country in a capacity of the armed forces, police forces, diplomats, international work-ers and volunteers. as mentioned earlier vot-ing is compulsory for all – all the australians and a fine is issued if one does not vote.

she said that voting can be done any-where in the world, there is no need to be in your home location. the aec offers, those travelling, working or living overseas, the right to vote. aec provides the location and information via its website and for the 2016 election they utilize 95 locations across the

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world for taking votes. aec took roughly sev-enty one and a half thousand with london as the largest site taking roughly 16,000 votes followed closely by Hong Kong with small-est site being trinidad, which took 7 votes.

the aec supports these locations with a 24 x 7 telephone helpdesk throughout the election period. in addition to onsite voting, postal voting is offered across the australia and overseas for people who cannot attend polling place overseas such as defence per-sonnel or travelling australians. a post that can be applied for online via online postal vote application site. in the presentation she demonstrated an example of the postal vote

with the ballot papers attached. it must be filled down, completed, witnessed and sent back to the elector’s home division in aus-tralia by 13 days after the election day to be included in the count.

she said that another category of post-al vote is a general postal voter referred to as a Gpv. one can register as a Gpv under a number of categories as approved by the aec such as, a patient in hospital or nursing home if they are unable to travel due to se-rious illness or in firm, serving a prison sen-tence that is less than three years, registered as an overseas elector, a member of a de-fence or civilian defence personnel serving

overseas and a australian federal police officers serving overseas. once registered as a Gpv, one automatically receives the ballot paper after an election is announced. recently, the australian postal service has re-duced its daily mail ser-vices due to the amount of services that are now provided to australians online. this puts immense pressure on the return of postal votes in time to be

She said that voting can be done anywhere in the world, there is no need to be in your home location. The AEC offers, those travelling, working or living overseas, the right to vote.


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included in the count, the pressure is multi-plied by trying to get postal votes back from overseas and often remote locations in time.

this year the aec had 1.3 million peo-ple vote via postal vote that included 41,000 for overseas electors across a 179 coun-tries. between postal votes and overseas locating data they had about 113,000 being able to cast their vote in July this year. for security reasons they do not identify defence personnel that have voted for an overseas lo-cation. assistance is provided by a depart-ment of foreign affairs with coordinating the communication.

aec has a number of challenges with overseas electors. though they have a com-prehensive website and are engaged by facebook and twitter, they have difficulty in notifying overseas electors that the election

has been called. a diplomatic post can noti-fy non-voters in their area and assistance in getting to the regional areas but timeliness is critical and without their assistance a large number of voters will miss out on the oppor-tunity. the aec continues to work on how to better engage overseas participation and return ballots in time to include it in counting process. in some cases when postal service is not available, aec even gets to collect postal ballots by special messengers by flight.


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mr safaa ibrahim Jasim, commissioner, in-dependent High electoral commission, iraq spoke in his address that iHec was com-mitted to inclusion of all iraqi’s of different categories and organizes voter education for inclusion. He said special measures are taken for iraqi voters living abroad, members of diplomatic core, defence forces, those in hospitals and the prisoners with less than 5 years of sentence. He said that the consti-tutional rights guaranteed under the 2005

constitution provide for same basic free-doms for all the citizens. in this context, all the personnel on duty and otherwise are in-cluded in the electoral process for voting.He said broadly, the following categories of voters are facilitated for inclusion in exercise of franchise: special and conditional voting by us-

ing the voter register, electronic vot-er’s card and the out of country voting (ocv).

independent HiGH electoral commission, iraq

iraQ / Mr. safaa ibrahiM JasiM commissioner


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special voting by using the voter’s reg-ister for members of the ministry of de-fence and ministry of interior.

special voting for members of the min-istry of defense and ministry of interior by using voter’s register and voter e card.

special conditional voting for staffs and patients in the hospitals and prisoner in jails with less than 5 years of sentence.

He said special voter education mod-ules are developed and all the above cate-gories of voters and the iHec undertake exercise to educate voters how to exercise their voting rights. the voter education is imparted through planned manner, lectures,

publications, posters besides reaching out to voters through satellite channels.

He said that they have started out of country voting also now. it was started in the year 2010 followed by 2014. the poll-ing stations are sat up outside the embassy premises also to facilitate the voters abroad. the main aim was to ensure effective in-clusion and suitable voter education rfor all the categories. He mentioned that unHcr, united nations mission in iraq and ifes pro-vided technical support and training to the staff in cooperation with election administra-tion of arab region for capacity building in electoral education center.

He closed his presentation with thanks to the participation. ◆

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ms macheli started her presentation with thanks to dr nasim Zaidi, chief election commissioner of india on behalf of the in-dependent electoral commission of lesotho for the invitation to participate in the confer-ence.

she said that the independent elector-al commission of lesotho was established in 1997 under the constitution of lesotho (2nd amendment to the constitution). the iec was mandated to manage overall elec-

toral process including constituency delimi-tation, voter registration, nomination of can-didates, voting, conduct of civic and voter education, establishment of liaison commit-tees and announcement of results. during the period between 1993 and 2007, there was a lot of dissatisfaction against the en-tire electoral process and election results. voters did not have confidence in the office of chief electoral officer that was manag-ing the elections from 1993 and the inde-

lesotho / Ms. liQabang lydia MaCheli civic education officer, iec

independent electoral commission lesotHo


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pendent electoral commission from 1997 to 2007 even though they had some voter education programmes that attempted to eliminate their dissatisfaction. as a result, lesotho was popularly known for post elec-tion conflict resulting from election results.

she said that before 2001 there was a challenge of clashes between police and the military personnel on who is supposed to safeguard the ballot boxes especially where the army and the police were work-ing together in particular in inaccessible ar-eas where iec were using the helicopters by the military to transport the ballot boxes,

the election results as well as the staff. train-ing started in 2001. iec trained the military personnel, police; and that has worked very well. the training produced great change and they now no longer clash and each and every one and knows his role as far as elec-tion and security is concerned. the political parties are also not able to abuse or misuse conflict for manipulating the electoral results that used to emanate from conflict of roles. the iec has used effective training tech-niques in addressing this serious challenge. this has helped understanding the respec-tive roles; and also strengthen the sanctitiy of the electoral process, obviate any percep-

tion of rigging. the initiative of the electoral commission of lesotho has yielded good results.

after 1998 electoral riots, in 2001, the commission realised a need for massive voter education. according to the mandate, the commission is expected to enhance un-derstanding and knowledge of sound dem-ocratic electoral processes and practices. the commission was required to engage itself in imparting voter education for holding of elections and to imparting voter education towards holding of elections to enable voters to make informed choices and understand-

ing the value and importance of vote and how to vote. they engaged 298 temporary voter educators (ve’s) and voter education is provided by these ve’s even now. there was an overall voter education across the general voter population, across the board without any segmentation.

the commission realized that even when they had engaged voter educators, people still complained of an element of low level of understanding on how voting is con-ducted. the commission realized they need to train different groups of stakeholders such as the defence ministry personnel, lesotho mounted police, executive committees of

IEC trained the military personnel, police; and that has worked very well. The training produced great change and they now no longer clash and each and every one and knows his role as far as election and security is concerned.

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political parties, civil society organizations, people with disabilities and nominated can-didates from political parties, party agents and so many other groups to be given an ex-tensive training on how the process of elec-tions is conducted in lesotho so that they do not have a conflict caused by low level of understanding.

she explained that in order for the commission to build its image, gain back the lost confidence and promote participation in the electoral process, the commission de-cided to strengthen its efforts in voter edu-cation in a well designed manner. the initia-tives included: (i) engagement of civil society organiza-

tions for providing voter education; (ii) financial support to the cso’s collabo-

rating in the process. (iii) political parties’ educators to build the

confidence of voters on the process. (iv) training of key stakeholders such as po-

litical parties, lesotho defense force, lesotho mounted police and invisible security (national security services personnel), faith-based organizations, people with disabilities, women groups and youth.

(v) more than 20 workshops were con-ducted for all the security personnel. these resulted in a slight increase of turnout, huge difference in terms of in-volvement of security personnel in mat-ters relating to electoral violence, high level of understanding as to safeguard-ing elections.

(vi) there is no longer tension between po-lice and military as to who should guard

ballot boxes before and after elections. at inaccessible voting stations the mili-tary helicopters were used to airlift bal-lot papers, polling personnel and police.

(vii) the number of voters who actually cast their vote in the police service and de-fense has increased.

(viii) there is trust and cooperation between voting staff and the security personnel. the air wing ldf personnel used to clash with iec staff on transportation of election results together with police.she added that training of the polling

personnel has been substantially improved with larger time durations of 3-5 days for the training. the errors in the poll process have been minimized as also the number of reject-ed ballots and the complaints of the political parties. she said that the petitions related to the electoral outcomes have also decreased substantially.

in her presentation she said that as for diplomatic mission personnel are con-cerned, the ambassadors are given self guiding manuals for facilitating electoral participation. citizens outside the country have not been given any education or train-ing whatsoever. but at the moment political parties are mobilizing each other towards encouraging the commission into finding means of enabling voters outside lesotho to vote at embassies.

she said that the lesotho citizens may be everywhere in the world but their main presence is in south africa.

lesotho has also learned a lot from south africa, but there was no provision of the law


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that provides for citizens outside the country except those that are in diplomatic missions as to vote. they will work on this aspect because politicians are raising this point strongly that the citizens living abroad must be registered and arrangements be made for exercise of their voting rights. indeed in 2012 they tried to register them, but it was a bit complex and very expensive also and in effect they have not been able to do much for overseas citizens but they will continue their effort.

as far as enhancement of participa-tion she said that they have tried to enhance voting through improved efforts in voter ed-ucation. their voter education programs are short in nature nearer to the election period. the cost of the voter education is high and they have realized in lesotho that people do not have interest in funding of civic and voter education in between the election periods. the commission is making efforts to source funds for the programme on continued basis.

she explained the challenges faced by the commission in the matter as given below: (i) cost of training programmes is very

high. (ii) lesotho voter education is not continu-

ous, it is done only when there is going

to be elections (3-6 months); there is no financial support for voter education in the non-election period.

(iii) civic education has not been in place. the commission in now making prepa-rations to come up with a comprehen-sive programme of civic education.

(iv) no studies undertaken; election related research, evaluation programmes

(v) absence of institutionalized strategy and policyshe concluded her presentation with

the following: (i) the commission has realized a need to

embark on civic education inclusive of voter education.

(ii) funds will be a challenge if the govern-ment is not ready to cater for continu-ous programmes.

(iii) civic and voter education policy draft is already in place, it is pending discus-sion by stakeholders.

(iv) commission has realized a need for in-tensive training for security personnel across the period of 5 years or beyondshe said that the entire exercise de-

pends on availability of supporting funds for the programmes. she closed her presenta-tion with thanks to the participation. ◆

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mr ballados started with thanks on behalf of dr. lorenzo córdova vianello, the president of ine especially to dr nasim Zaidi, Hon’ble chief election commissioner of india and all the members of the indian election commis-sion for invitation to the conference.

He started his presentation with the issues and challenges in overseas voting in mexico and their experience so far in the matter. in order to do that it is useful to see the global context. He said that over 3% of

the world population is residing abroad. mi-grants residing outside their countries come up to around 250 million people in the world. voting for these people has been dealt with in a number of ways. citing the example of australia, the first country, that provided for voting abroad right from start of the last cen-tury. some provisions were made for over-seas military personnel in the us after the second world war. the overseas voters’ inclusion was not dealt with very much by

MeXiCo / Mr. PatriCio ballados executive director, ine

instituto nacional electoral, mexico


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the emb’s until about the end of second World War; and then with the third wave or the democratization of, mainly latin america and then the eastern european countries. today more than 100 embs provide for voting abroad supported by law. mexico of course came on board a bit late with their transition to democracy in the last century. but it is important to note that around 10% to 15% of the mexican population resides abroad with over 98% of the migrants resid-ing in the united states only. they have very close ties with homeland. around us dollars 24 billion remittances are returned to mex-ico each year from persons working in the united states. there are very strong relation-ships including family relationships and the economic relationships. the challenge faced by the ine, mexico relates to recognizing the overseas voting or voting from the diaspora was, first of all, the certainty versus feasibility.

He added that mexico has very com-

plicated and intricate electoral rules due to the fact that they were not a democracy until very recently and had a one-party system. everything that the transition to democracy needed, was provided for such as indepen-dent and autonomous institutions because, the people or the opposition parties did not trust the government or the governmental re-gime. to illustrate, the ine could not conduct elections in mexican embassies because the ambassadors are a part of the govern-ment and were not very trusted in order to count votes. another challenge /problem is the large population of overseas voters concentrated in certain areas. for example, the consulate in los angeles, california, has over one-and-a-half million mexican na-tionals registered. voting at the consulate in case of Haiti or dominican republic is easy. one can go to consulate fill out the ballot and vote. However, if mexicans had to follow that practice, they would end up with long

queues outside the con-sulate. He said that their relationship with the us which has largest num-ber of mexicans, is rath-er complex, therefore in order to provide for the opportunity or recognize the political right to par-ticipation under article 25 of the charter, ine will have to provide for some way of voting which was feasible. special arrange-ments will have to be made including security,

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voter education including civic education for the citizens.

He briefly mentioned about the 1996 constitutional reforms, the ine task force to assess the viability of overseas voting fol-lowed by the 2005 constitutional reform. He explained the limitations that came on the way to the overseas voters as it was possible only if they had a valid voting card issued in mexico, possible for presidential election only, feasible through certified mail costing about us $ 12 per vote. He spoke of 5 phases of overseas voting 2006-12: the mexican model and good practices to expand participation. this included:

(i) application for overseas voter list: ap-plications for registration by certified mail.7000 distribution points were set up. mexican and american media, spe-cial events, phone online were used.

(ii) voter id verification: overseas voter registry was set up as per the criteria: by state and electoral district of origin and by country of residence.

(iii) mailing of electoral material; postal electoral packets were sent 3 months prior to the election. contents included voting ballot, mailing guidelines, spe-cial envelop booklet with political par-ties platforms; cd and dvd containing

messages from candidates and a thank you bracelet.

(iv) postal vote.ine, the then ife received 33,111 envelopes containing ballots from 71 countries. a special operations centre was set up at the mexico city airport.

(v) vote counting and tally. on vote count-ing day, 170 vote counting and tally sta-tions were set up in mexico city. vote counting started as soon polls closed and three days later absentee voting re-sults were added to those obtained in 300 electoral districts.He discussed the issues in overseas

voting as follows: first of all, people residing abroad

have to be informed that they have a right. mexico has had three great accomplish-ments in recognition of political rights, first was recognizing the right of women to vote (1953); then the right of young person’s to vote which was done in the 70s; and now after 2005 mexico recognize the third wave which was tens of millions of people the right to vote from abroad. mexican migration is mainly economical not so much political and people usually don’t choose to leave the country. but they leave mainly because they do not have opportunities to provide support

First of all, people residing abroad have to be informed that they have a right. Mexico has had three great accomplishments in recognition of political rights.


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for their families in mexico. ine wants them to exercise their political rights in order to be able to choose a government that would lis-ten to them and would provide with a public policy that makes them the return to home more possible.

secondly in mexico the electoral roll is very sophisticated. for the first time one may vote from overseas but only if one had an electoral card applied for and issued in mexico. if one is living abroad undocument-ed without electoral enrolment or an elector-al card, it may be difficult to ask people to come back for an electoral card. costs and

perils of doing that in order to get an elec-toral card were very high. they were able to amend the law and now people can enrol from abroad. ine have to give timely infor-mation to the overseas voters to register.

the voting methods for overseas vot-ers include the postal vote. internet voting has been used in the local elections, but using this for overseas voters would require gaining knowledge, experience and learning from other countries.

He said new communication strate-gies were implemented in period between

registry and vote emission with information booths at border crossing points and also in within strategic states. they used the fa-mous and successful overseas mexicans for outreach and connect with diaspora; for example ‘los tigres del norte’, a very popular mexican music group in the united states, soccer players, formula one drivers, basketball players and many celebrities that have helped ine promote registration and voting overseas.

He said that they have provided with different ways of internet and on line adver-tisements for with mexicans residing mainly

all over the world. ine has mexico citizens registered from over 80 countries in the world with their point of origin in the mexican republic. once they are registered, they put their ballot in an envelope followed by the second envelope to ensure secrecy of vote.

He said that ine also sends postal ballots especially when voters were small in number. but they have a dilemma because now they have overseas voting and there is a provision for candidates to go out of mexico for campaigning. but that would disturb the campaign finance regulatory regime. over-

New communication strategies were implemented in period between registry and vote. Voters are provided with information packages at information booths at border crossing points and also in strategic states. They use successful overseas Mexicans for outreach and connect with Diaspora.

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seas voters can vote but they don’t neces-sarily have the information on who to vote for. information dissemination is a challenge. ine sent them a few dvds that the different presidential candidates recorded for them-selves and tell them why to vote for them but it is expensive. He said fortunately the inter-net has developed and is helpful in such a situation.

He said that they had a very low par-ticipation around 1% of the overseas popu-lation which is normal around the world but in mexico there’s a high expectation for it to reach higher. now with the possibility to ap-ply for the voting card from abroad they have already had more than a hundred thousand people who have applied in the last couple of months and probably in the next presidential election they will have more overseas voters.

He spoke of the highlights of 2012 as compared to 2005 and mentioned that there was a 45% of increase in number of applica-tions for registrations and 24.8% increase in polled ballots received from overseas.

He discussed different aspects of the overseas voter empowering through the ex-ecutive order and the legislative instruments and the practice varies from country to coun-try. some say then it’s better to have the vote for the legislative because the congress will pass the laws accordingly to provide a larg-er support. it is ultimately what benefits the diaspora better and the recognition of the right that matters. the legal framework for the 2018 elections provides wider scope for electoral participation for senators and Gov-ernors from diaspora; wider voter universe with voter id cards that can be issued in 80

embassies and 66 consulates; and wider voting possibilities covering postal vote, bal-lot delivery in diplomatic representations and the e-vote.

He presented the february 2016 scenario with 150,124 mexican citizens re-quested a voter id card in 141 consulates in 47 cuntries,102,521 have already obtained

their cards, and 16,995 have already activat-ed their id cards. He hoped a larger dias-pora participation in forthcoming elections in 2017, 2018 and further.

He concluded with thanks to the par-ticipation. ◆


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starting his presentation in his usual lively style He mr Hicks said that ‘i know that no one’s going to really listen to me until i ad-dress the elephant in the room’ so let’s get this over with i watch the debate this morning there are a few things said i can’t comment on them but i can comment on the fact the ac-cusation that dead people are voting the rolls are what they are that because people are registered once people are registered if they are on those rolls it’s up to the state to clean

those rolls that does not mean that people are voting on those rolls so if you see dead people voting i think we have more problems than just people voting so that’s it addressing the elephant in the room and before my friend from uganda ask so on with my presentation so because i believe that this is something that’s very, very important and i’m sure that i’ll get more questions from the media.

starting his presentation with thanks to the chief election commissioner of india

usa / h e Mr. thoMas hiCks cHairman, election assistance commission

u.s. election assistance commission

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and the election commissioners for inviting him to the conference, he said that this con-ference has been very valuable to talk with people from around the world, about their experiences. He said that he has learned a lot as the deliberations of the confer-ence have moved on. He also thanked the deputy election commissioner and the entire eci team for working hard on orga-nizing the conference.

He said that the us military and over-seas voters have a unique law in the united states called the uniformed and overseas citizens absentee voting act which was put

together in 1996 and signed by president reagan. it is not the first overseas voting act that was done for military and overseas voters, but it is comprehensive and it put ev-erything together under one piece of legisla-tion. the act provides the legal framework to ensure that military and overseas voters can vote. the u.s. citizens covered by uoca-va include inter alia the active members of the uniformed services, the merchant ma-rines, the commissioned corps of the pub-lic Health service and the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, the eligible family members of the above categories and

the u.s. citizens residing outside the united states that is the overseas citizens who may be working for the us state department or diplomatic missions or other entities and for people in the united states who may be working for companies overseas as well. in-terestingly, he said he was able to exercise his franchise as a student overseas for a couple years once when he was in australia and once when he was in england. the Help america vote act which was signed in 2002 added to this provision to ensure that there is one single state office to provide informa-tion on registration and absentee ballots,

report on absentee ballots transmitted and received after general elections, extension of period covered by single absentee ballot application and prohibition of refusal of vot-er registration and absentee ballot for early submission. thus the Hava-eac-uocava interactions provide for a single office that the military and overseas voters can come to, to ensure that they can apply for absen-tee votes and absentee ballots and exercise their franchise conveniently. He said that the eac does a biannual report on the number of ballots that were transmitted and received after every general election.

Thus the HAVA-EAC-UOCAVA Interactions provide for a single office that the military and overseas voters can come to, to ensure that they can apply for absentee votes and absentee ballots and exercise their franchise conveniently.


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He mentioned about the military and overseas voters empowerment act (move) on which he worked when he was working in the us congress in 2009. the act was signed by president obama and it basically allows for two major facilities for military and overseas voters. one is that it requires the states to send absentee ballots to uocava voters at least 45 days before federal elec-tions. this year, for the General election the eac have been in touch with each state with

mandate to send out ballots overseas to mil-itary and overseas voters by that time frame they could do it ahead of time but they had to do latest by september 24th. the other ma-jor provision under the move act allows the transmission of those ballots electronically overseas to military and overseas voters but there are 26 states that allow for the receipt of those ballots back electronically. some al-low the overseas voters to use the internet to vote those ballots, but once that is done, they have to waive their right of privacy so that means that their vote is no longer private and that is one of the downfalls of that piece of the legislation but it also allows for it to be sent back via fax or pdf as well.

there are more resources that al-low for the overseas military voters: one is the federal postcard application; the fpca which allows for a voter to download that is

to basically let the states know as to who you are, where you are and which ballot you would be receiving? so that would be for the individual states and those localities to allow for you to receive your ballot.

the ‘federal write-in absentee ballot’ is another resource that would allow a voter to vote if he does not receive his ballot then he can download that and vote for federal races which would allow him to still exercise his right to vote for president and congress

and the us senate as well. but that is the last resort. there is yet another resource that is ‘partnerships’ between the state and local election officials with military installations in-side the united states and abroad to ensure that those military personnel can receive their ballots. He said that he had gone to a num-ber of bases around the country and seen how each individual base has a officer that is assigned to ensure that the military and other uocava voters receive the information and are able to get that information relating to the extant elections.

on working together for overseas american voters he said that the eac works with a number of part-

ners to ensure that military and overseas vot-ers can get their ballots. With federal part-ners the eac work with the department of

On working together for Overseas American Voters he said that the EAC works with a number of Partners to ensure that military and overseas voters can get their ballots.

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defence, the national institute of standards and technology (nist) which basically does a lot of the voluntary voting system guide-lines and the standards themselves. basi-cally nist is an organization that does a lot of standards in terms of trying to equate it the best way. the us postal service which has in the more recent years consolidated a number of postal facilities which makes it a little harder at times for individuals to get their ballots, but the eac have been work-ing with them to ensure that they postmark these papers correctly and expedite them a little faster as well.

non-governmental partners include like the pew charitable trust, the democra-cy fund, csG, the bipartisan policy cen-ter an american non profit and democracy

works as well and other governmental agen-cies that represent election officials like the national association of state election direc-tors, nass: the association of secretaries of state and the national conference of state legislatures as well.

He mentioned about the policy Work-ing Group which shows experience of work-ing together in his presentation. the main activities include voter communication that underlines using plain language, make ef-fective user-friendly ballot return envelopes, communicate to voters when the ballot ap-plication is accepted and provide informa-tion to voters about what is on the ballot.

on ‘federal post card application’, he said that it is to be treated as a perma-nent request for voter registration, further

establish a default validity period for fpca mail bal-lot request. online voter registration has been massively successful in ensuring that people can get their ballots on time and exercise their fran-chise. states that provide online voter registration should incorporate on-line registration for over-seas and military voters.

on ‘improved engagement with us military community’ he said that partnership be-tween state and the local election officials and local military installations are developed for facilitating overseas voting.

revisiting the csG, he said that they have a $ 3.2 million dollar initiative to work


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towards ensuring that military overseas vot-ers can get their ballots faster and make sure that they send those back. csG is a group of election officials who are state, local and federal election officials coming together to ensure that this initiative is fulfilled they hope to have a report at the end of december on best recommendations to move forward with that. He said that its Goals for 2016 cam-paign aim at clarifying language and instruc-tions for 2016; develop roadmap for future, understand the role of data standardization and look to transactional election data for voter success metrics. He introduced the

election administration voting survey, 2014 and said that this presentation is just a pic-ture or snapshot of the survey that the elec-tion assistance commission does every two years since this is the one that we just pub-lished in June of this year with the help of the department of defense and the report sub-mitted to the 11th congress on the survey. the survey specially included the findings on the impact of the national voter registration act of 1993 and the survey findings of im-pact of the uocava.

on ‘#beready16’ he said that he was happy that he became the chairman this

year and he would be able to go across the country to talk to election officials for being ready for the general election coming up, the election security preparedness, accessibil-ity, managing technology and getting voter guides out as much as possible. referring to the slide in presentation on election preparedness, this is just a snapshot of some of the items on which work is happening, it lists the lots of different things as well and was available on their website at [email protected].

“eac chair tom Hicks talks with matt boehmer, director of fvap, to discuss what

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state and local election officials can do to prepare to send out ballots to these voters starting september 24, 2016, 45 days prior to election day as mandated by the military and overseas voter empowerment (move) act.

as a part of the presentation he shared a small film on his discus-sion with his colleague matt boehmer, director of Havp in regard to their work on uocava for 2016 elections. excerpts of the interaction are re-produced as follows:

“matt boehmer: Great question on as you know one of the priorities this year for the eac and fvap was to learn a lot more about election mail. we’ve both been working with our postal experts in both the united states postal service and the military postal service agency to understand the challenges that we have with mail, this is incredibly

important with are uocava voters because most of them are either receiving their ballots by mail or sending them back by mail and election officials as you know play a huge part in this and so what we’ve been doing is making sure that we the resources are avail-

On ‘#BEREADY16’ he said that he was happy that he became the Chairman this year and he would be able to go across the country to talk to election officials for being ready for the general election coming up.


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able for election officials so one of the most important things is to know where those resources are? so your own website eac.gov has those resources so if you go to your page vote by mail dot-gov those resources are there for you to understand mailing what are the things that you need to do? so, we’re asking election officials just like you and i are trying to get more educated about this to re-ally understand the process. the other thing that we’re asking election officials to do is to make sure that their staff are knowledgeable about some of the postal requirements and the best way to do this is we’re encouraging

people to meet with their local postmaster generals we’re saying do this early make sure that when you bring your ballots to the post office, it’s not the first time that you’ve met with the postmaster Gen-eral and your local postal staff.”

He said that was matt boehmer director of fvap live. as a part of the presentation, he also showed a quick snapshot of some of the resources that they have on their website relating to the uocava page. He reit-erated that with fvap mil-itary overseas voters can vote from anywhere in the world. and that he was particularly happy that

there was even one voter who was part of the Houston which is where Johnson space centre is, who voted from space. though he had to give up his right of privacy but he sent that back the ballot electronically to Hous-ton and it was counted as a ballot from the, from the international space centre. He also a snapshot of the fvap webpage to show as to how they provide information out to the public through twitter, facebook to our ‘#beready16’ campaign and they have a youtube channel.

He closed his very absorbing presen-tation with thanks to the participation. ◆

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mr. vasu mohan started his presentation with greetings to the participation and with thanks to the election commission of india, the commissioners and the extraordinary hard-working staff who put this event to-gether.

in his presentation titled ‘voter edu-cation: challenges in out of country vot-ing(ocv)’ he said that voting is a fundamen-tal human right everyone has. as election administrators and as international organiza-

tions and as experts, we are removing ob-stacles from the right that the people already have, so we need to be very careful in how we approach this subject. He said he particular-ly liked the presentations where the voter is really at the centre of the whole process. the elections serve a different purpose. it is not merely to elect or remove obstacles for peo-ple from exercising this fundamental human right, it’s not that strong democracies or sort of well-established democracies prioritize

ifes / Mr. vasu Mohan reGional director

international foundation of electoral systems


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inclusion; it is actually the other way round that democracies become stronger because they prioritize inclusion. any discourse on the rights of people with disabilities to vote, the right of women to vote, ethnic and religious minorities to vote, is not something about accommodating these communities. this is primarily to demonstrate that democracies become strong through the participation of the so-called marginalized communities. it is not something someone grants them the rights to vote, it is the way the democracy

becomes stronger. With this underlying con-ceptual framework, ‘out of country voting’ or for that matter all these special categories it should be clear that it’s not an accommo-dation and simple inclusion, it is particularly important to appreciate that this is how we become stronger as democracies.

He said that he is a specialist in elec-tions and conflict, ethnic and reli-gious minorities, gender and related

areas. He said that more than the speciali-sation, it was a personal area of interest be-cause as a sri lankan citizen living abroad since the age of 11, he had never voted. He said that he had worked with over 25 emb’s and helped manage many elections in his career, but never had the opportunity to ac-

tually cast his vote. therefore this was some-thing very personal for him that is the right of the overseas voters.

He said that the ifes has worked in partnership with emb’s in over 145 countries over the last three decades and throughout this work he along with his colleagues has been able to see in countries that this is not just the right to vote, it is not just a funda-mental human rights article 19 the udHr but it’s also something what makes us hu-man, it is part of human aspiration to want

to have a say in who we are governed and who governs us and how we are governed? it is this overall framework that provides a le-gal support for all the special categories of voters under discussion. in this backdrop, article 19 of the udHr spells out freedom of opinion and expression and the ability to get information. He said he proposes to focus on one particular category that is the ocv against this broad framework.

He said that the udHr, iccpr, ce-daW and then the crpd supplemented with several regional international treaties and covenants that govern the right to vote and within that our particular focus is on vot-er education and information.

the citizens have the right to receive this information from various sources and

Any discourse on the rights of people with disabilities to vote, the right of women to vote, ethnic and religious minorities to vote, is not something about accommodating these communities.

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media of their choice. in the broad scheme of things, over a 115 countries have some or other provision for external voting. these include 28 countries in africa, 16 in ameri-cas, 20 in asia,41 in europe and 10 in pa-cific. as mentioned during presentation from mexico, with increasingly high trends in the ocv, every democracy have to ask itself as to what are they doing for their overseas citizens? He said that these ocv’s include broadly 150 million migrant workers (2013 ilo),65.3 million refugees (2015 unHcr), diplomats, defence personnel or other members of professional groups usually in some form of state service.

often, he said, the demand for over-seas voting tends to come from political parties as well as people who are courting a particular special interest across the borders. However, in conditions of conflict, the legiti-macy of the elected government also comes into question. it is important to have citizens who are outside of the borders to participate. He said that in 2004-05 he worked from the Wash-ington side of the ifes operation in afghanistan for the overseas voters. over 800,000 afghans refugees voted in pa-kistan and iran and this was a very large opera-tion. ever since then he had the privilege to see at ifes other overseas vot-ing operations including that of iraq in 2010 and

several others countries such as liberia and sudan. the operations follow certain vital principles.

one is the principle of neutrality, if the emb’s are not proactively providing voter education, then special interest groups will provide that information for the voters. indi-vidual election commissions are best suited to provide voter education. it is really import-ant for that to be central to overseas voting. He said he would focus on refugee popu-lations as that is an area not addressed by others as other areas such as the defence voters, the poll workers, military personnel and other overseas categories. However, the refugees are at the in-between space. they have left the mainland, not out of their free will, but mostly because of a conflict and there are issues of statelessness. He said that this he knows as his personal expe-rience as an experience of forced migration and one’s your whole life turns around in a


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moment with things that one has deeply held to be a part of life are completely taken away from a person and within that time, the ability to vote is such a powerful sense of identity and such a powerful sense of feeling like a human being. He said that this he saw this

upfront in pakistan for the afghan voters. this idea and the feeling as refu-gees, they are not able to have a voice in what is happening in their country and that is a huge deal for them.

He said that one of the biggest issues re-lating to overseas voting and particularly to refu-gees is the issue of costs. cost analyses on a very practical scale reflect that costs about a dollar

to two dollars for a registered voter and in some cases it goes up to even $5 to $20 per registered voter. many of countries do not have the budget to support this and then on top of that if you are looking at voter ed-ucation through media that is accessible in those countries, cost becomes really a sig-nificant barrier against overseas voting. He said that ocv may be of different types us-ing different methodologies such as return voting, in person voting at overseas polling stations, embassy voting, postal voting, in-ternet voting and fax voting etc. one may come back to one’s country and vote or one votes in person overseas in the embassy polling station; there may be postal voting or internet voting like in estonia or there may be fax voting in addition as in case of australia or new Zealand.

the key voter education challenge is to get people the requisite information about time, the timelines and the eligibility criteria.

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some countries issue cards but that may not be true for refugees. Whatever be the eligibility criteria, the issue is as to how it is communicated; and then the mechanism for registering and casting ballot? this is the key information that ocv’s need. in case of especially the refugees or forced migrants need to receive and this dissemi-nation of information is a challenge in voter educa-tion. it is important to un-derstand the nature and type of target populations to facilitate planning and strategising the imparting of voter education.

He said that a few key considerations for addressing the challeng-es in voter education to these categories of voters include the supporting legal framework and the conflict dynamics. the conflict may be of extreme nature and extremely diffi-cult for example in south sudan where they were refugees from warring tribes both, with in the country or at the loca-tions outside of country. the voter education chal-lenges should be seen in these contexts?

diversity: He said that the use of multiple

languages may be necessary. the iraqi ocv was done in arabic and in Kurdish; in afghan ocv was done in dari and pashto. ade-quate lead time is necessary when multiple languages are involved in ocv. in addition, host country limitations are also an important


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factor.literacy levels: in low voter education

and low literacy areas, voter education strat-egy should take that into mind that the in-struction videos tend to be very useful.

issues of gender: reaching out to women in refugee camps and areas with low safety of movement and safety of person or women in terms of participating in political processes need to be taken into consider-ation and voter education should really ad-dress that upfront.

He said that while the content of the voter education is important mode of out-reach is equally relevant it may include social media, mass media, telephones, face to face and instructional videos. referring to some pictures from afghanistan he said that the multiple means of outreach may be essential. citing the example of ocv by libya especially in the us, he said that some of the most successful ocv operations in-volve facebook.

mass media is interesting, but to use mass media in another country to use mass media may be extremely cost prohibitive be-cause there’s no incentive on host countries to provide free media. While the rules of ac-

cess to media the emb’s may have in their own countries, may not just be applicable outside. as such the use of mass media may be effective but it may be cost-prohibitive. telephone hotlines sometimes are extremely useful but that depends upon the infrastruc-ture that’s provided. in Kosovo for the 2001 iom operated telephone hotline systems and over 32,000 calls were made to receive information about overseas voting.

in conclusion he said that the voter ed-ucation strategies, to reach ocv particularly

the refugees, have to take into consideration a series of issues. some of these are com-mon to all voter education programs and on top of that we need to look at the condition in which refugees or forced migrants are liv-ing in and how that impacts the strategy or comprehensive strategy. He closed his pre-sentation with thanks to the participation. ◆

Issues of gender: Reaching out to women in refugee camps and areas with low safety of movement and safety of person or women in terms of participating in political processes need to be taken into consideration and voter education should really address that upfront.

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ms angmo started her presentation with her personal example. she said that her hus-band joined the indian army in 1987 and since then he has voted only on two occa-sions that too when he was home for annu-al leave. He was not aware that he had the facility of postal ballet, she as his wife also had no information about that till she joined the election commission of india 5 years back. as far as she know most of his friends and colleagues don’t vote so, this is the big

challenge that election commission of india faces today.

numbers, she said perhaps, may not reveal the entire picture. 1.5 million serv-ing defence personnel in india today and about 3 million central para military forces personnel fall in the category of the service voters. they have state armed police force serving outside the states. then there may be those employed under the government who are outside the country but their num-

india / Ms. PadMa angMo director, election commission of india

election commission of india


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bers may be smaller. However, families of service voters, the defence personnel even if 50% of them are taken as married, around one and a half million spouse should also be enrolled as service voters.

in india the postal ballot facility is giv-en to the service voters but the proxy vote is given only to defence personnel and mem-bers of cpmf’s. they are also called clas-sified service voters but they have to apply for it. polling personnel fall in the category of special voters. they are extended the right

or the facility to vote through postal ballot with the election duty certificate (edc). prior to 2014, the turnout in this catego-ry was dismal. However, the commission took sustained initiatives prior to the last ‘lok sabha elections’ with the result about 5 million polling personnel (excluding security personnel) engaged in 2014 elections were able to exercise their voting right.this was an important initiative taken up under directions of the commission, edc was given to poll-ing personnel to vote within their constitu-ency (while on duty within the constituency) and they could go and personally vote in the polling station. However, if a person is on-duty outside the constituency, he is giv-en the right or the facility of the postal ballot. this was done before the ‘lok sabha elec-tions’, local officers were appointed for var-

ious levels of polling personnel, a database was created, orientation was given ahead of elections. people were motivated, facilitated and special training was given on, “how to vote through postal ballots”? a special initia-tive was taken to facilitate when they applied for postal ballots.

numbers do not exactly give the true picture. of the 834 million voters for the last lok sabha elections, 2014, votes cast were 554 million - a historic turnout for in-dian elections. the service voters registered

were 1.36 million of which 0.38 million vot-ers were women as per the registration in electoral roll. the number included service voters who may have retired or who might have died. therefore, these numbers do not provide exact picture of how many defence or classified service voters participated. postal ballots received came to 1.1 million and that looks an impressive count if one just look at the enrolled service voters. but the 1.1 million postal ballots also included the postal ballots by the polling officials. there-fore, 1.1 million is not simply the service per-sonnel, nor is it the classified service vote of the cmpf’s. 0.22 million votes were reject-ed. that is also a big area of concern for the commission because – perhaps the service personnel were not able to fill the postal bal-lots correctly.

Polling Personnel fall in the category of Special Voters. They are extended the right or the facility to vote through postal ballot with the Election Duty Certificate (EDC).

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proxy votes, one is sure that these, are either the defence personnel or thecpmf’s but only 173 proxy votes were cast. the proxy vote is a very interesting service pro-vision extended to the defence personnel. they can appoint a proxy in the place where they are enrolled and the person can physi-cally vote at the polling station.

she said that the next category relates to special voters. many countries have giv-en rights to overseas electors, others are in the process at different stages. as per law of elections in india a person, who is out-side india and has not attained the citizen-ship of any other country, can only enrol as an overseas elector. this amendment was introduced, wide representations of peo-ple’s amendments act in 2010 which came into force in february 2011, not much time before the last ‘lok sabha’ election that the eci could actually reach out to the overseas indian electors.

overseas indian voters do constitute a huge segment and as such lot more needs to be done for them. as such, about 11.4 million overseas indians, with largest number

in saudi arabia, united arab emirates, u.s.a and Kuwait pose a challenge for inclusion in electoral exercise. at the time of last ‘lok sabha’ election there were about 13,000 overseas electors enrolled. that it was a good beginning for the eci, as a first time exercise in reaching out to this segment. but there is a lot of scope for learning from other country presentations to proceed further in the matter.

she gave an overview of what is be-ing done in india on voter education? since 2009 to 2016 now they have had 3 phases of voter education. initially when the process started, they wanted to focus on gender gap removal, fighting urban apathy, overcom-ing youth disconnect and inclusion. so, for sveep also the focus remained the same, but the strategy was a little more system-atic and targeted. the commission wanted to provide targeted interventions so, 10% of the lowest turnout polling stations were analyzed, the main focus remained gender gap, urban apathy, youth disconnect and in-clusion.

the 2014 lok sabha election saw substantive increase in voter turnout as an out-come of voter education initiatives. but further initiatives from 2016 onwards under sveep 3 were required. focus Groups are discussed as follows. Gender: the gender gap in 2014 elections was just 1.55 and it was a cause of


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satisfaction for the commission as the low-est ever gender gap. eci aims to reduce it further. there are 8 or 9 focus groups but the service voters and overseas indians are new areas that require attention. after the last lok sabha elections, the commission examined the status of outreach to various groups. it was found that these two segments that needed attention for the outreach. techni-cal committees were formed with represen-tatives from the stakeholder’s community,

army, navy, air-force, cpmf, and aWWa (army Wives Welfare association). she said they wanted to target wives of service voters including prospective service voters, over-seas service voters etc.

overseas indian committee was also formed to focus on overseas indian electors a segment a totally new segment of voters.

the recommendations given by the technical committee was used to chalking out the strategy of sveep 3 concerning these two segments. some of the recent initiatives included online regis-tration facility for ser-vice personnel (already under way); e-postal

ballot is in the pipeline where secrecy of voters of prime importance as of now. as far as internet voting is concerned, no action is under consideration as of now, However, e-postal ballot’s one way transmission as a postal ballot to the overseas indian electors, mainly to the service voters is very much in the pipeline.

referring to knowledge, attitude prac-tices survey, she said that this is done in every election at district and state level and

initiatives for interventions are chalked out based on the findings of the survey. sveep division wanted to conduct a survey among the defence personnel with a view to under-stand gaps in information; the problems in facilitation; the messages that they could un-derstand? What language should be used to talk to them? the survey is being planned

The service voters and overseas Indians are new areas that require attention. After the last Lok Sabha elections, the Commission examined the status of outreach to various groups.

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through the ministry of defence. sveep di-vision will take inputs from the respondents and see how the outreach engages them. the matter has been further discussed with ministry of defence and it was conveyed that the commission desired all of their training programs, to compulsorily have electoral literacy as part of their training for the offi-cers and for the soldiers. awareness through army Wives Welfare association should be explored in all the defence forces. they have annual days at different formations in the army, navy and the air-force and the annu-al day’s celebration need to integrate elec-toral literacy to the target audience. special camps are already being conducted in can-tonment areas to reach out essentially for voter education and awareness among the service personal.

as far as overseas service – citizens are concerned, major collaboration with min-istry of external affairs to reach out to over-seas indians for electoral participation. nod-al officers will be nominated in embassies and countries with large nri population. eci has identified the countries where the indian population is large; es-pecially the students go abroad for education.

online registra-tion: eci has an online voters’ link, national voter service portal through which the over-seas indians can get registered online. eci have requested that the embassies should

provide kiosks where people can be provid-ed assistance especially in countries where internet facilities may not be available. min-istry of external affairs will be requested to sensitize their concerned officers to organize special registration camps in association with embassies.

on recent initiatives she said that online voters portal for overseas indians is available on major government websites. brochures have been designed and shared with the ministry of external affairs and e-version has been developed. change in representation of people act had been effected only recently, despite a very short period measures have been taken up since 2016 under phase iii of sveep. first ever and a historic knowledge, attitude and prac-tices survey covering unknown, uncharted territory is going to be undertaken to know gaps in information? What are their attitudes towards elections? so that the interventions can be designed accordingly.



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at the conclusion of the technical session, eci launched www.everyindianvotecounts.in to facilitate the online surveey and competition aimed at overseas indian citizens, primarily to identify the gaps in their awareness about india’s electoral process, understand their preferences. the objectives of the survey, which was conducted with the tata institute of social sciences, mumbai, were as follows:

1. assess the awareness levels among india’s overseas electors about regis-tration and voting in india

2. examine the gaps in awareness, moti-vation and participation of india’s over-seas electors in elections in india.

3. Gauge the opinions and preferences of india’s overseas electors on the var-ious options of casting their vote from abroad.

launCh online nri survey CuM CoMPetition

to attract respondents ‘competition’ with prizes was introduced. the competi-tion was also expected to crowd source creative ideas from overseas indians on the theme of electoral participation, so that the same content could further be used for the campaign for increasing voter participation.

149


11:40 - 13:30

New Delhi

OctOber

19-212016

Role of Information and Communication Technology for Voter Education and Feedback


150

Chair

Mr a k JOtI, election commissioner, india & Mr suPacHaI sOMcHarOEn, cHairman, office of tHe election commission of tHailand

Moderator

Mr sandEEP saxEna, deputy election commissioner

Presentations

pHilippines: Mr. Juan andrEs d. bautIsta, cHairman, pHilippine commission on elections

fiJi: Mr MOHaMMad sanEEM, supervisor, fiJian election office.

Ms naJIa HasHEMEE, undp, reGional specialist

india: Mr raJEsH LakHOnI, ceo, tamil nadu Day 2

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He started his presentation with thanks to the dr nasim Zaidi, the chief election com-missioner of india, election commissioners of india, and their team. He said the words of appreciation for the hard work that has been put in to organise the conference by the eci.

He said that his presentation would focus on what the philippine commission on elections (comelec) did during the last elections held in may, 2016. close to 56 million filipino voters trooped to 93,000

polling precincts and chose among approx-imately 45,000 candidates to elect one president, one vice president, 12 senators, 238 members of the House of represen-tatives, 162 governors and vice governors, 776 members of provincial councils, 3268 mayors and vice mayors and 13540 city and municipal councillors all in one day. He said that he was rather new to the election office as he was appointed chair of the 7 member philippine commission on elections in may

PhiliPPines / h e Juan andres d. bautista cHairman, commission on elections

commission on elections


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2015, exactly one year before the general election in 2016.

He said 2016 was the third time, that automated elections were being held and he wanted to challenge his colleagues to try and outperform the performance of 2010 and 2013 elections. really in terms of the objectives for the 2016 elections, they want-ed to simplify what they were trying to do. first and foremost was, credible elections. He said that the elections must not only be credible elections, nor is it sufficient that the elections are honest. elections must be perceived to be honest by a good majority, not only of the citizens but also of the inter-national audience. secondly the focus was on ways to enhance the voting experience

with voter centric in their approach. so, they looked out for the comfort and convenience of the voter firmly believing that a high voter turnout that will enhance the mandate of the elected representatives. and if the mandate of the people elected is strengthened, that will also in turn strengthen democracy.

He said that they developed a gener-

al strategy termed as ‘icetea’ to achieve these twin objectives. in this i stands for in-spiring the comelec workforce, c stands for consulting, e stands for engaging their stakeholders including the critics; t stands for being transparent, e for efficient and a for accountable in their working and actions. but specifically, he said, they wanted to learn from the lessons of 2010 and 2013 as well as lessons that they gained from attending conferences and forum such as this. they wanted to improve upon their performance and in doing so they identify key result ar-eas and key performance indicators against which their performance should be mea-sured. this was achieved through creation of a score card just like students and all the

persons in the organi-zation get report cards. this meant every per-son in the organization had to create his own report card that would provide a quantitative basis as to how the performance of the commission on elec-tions would be as-sessed for the 2016 elections. for example,

in terms of voter turnout the total voters in the philippines is around 56 million, an in-crease by about 3 million from 2013. but one notes that the voter turnout in 2016 was close to 82%, the highest in philippine elec-toral history.

overseas filipino voters are around 10 million and historically they have not been

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able to register as many as they want. in 2013 only, 7% of these 10 million were reg-istered but they were able to double that in 2016, both in terms of registration and turn-out. there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in this area and the initiative of the eci in respect of creating a portal for over-seas indians is worth emulating and hopeful-ly one can learn from it. absentee voters in-clude soldiers, the media people who get the opportunity to vote in advance. they were able to double the number of these voters. voter profile, similar to other countries, but the females constitute now a larger majori-ty albeit not that very large with about 51%

of our voters are female and 48% are male. However, in respect of candidates, a good number are still male at about 80% and they are looking to increase that in future elec-tions.

He said that there was scope of im-provement in ballot printing. they were able to print 55.7 million ballots and these are precinct specific ballots and cannot be inter changed as the ballot say of polling precinct x with that of polling precinct y because the candidates are different. they were able to print these ballots in a record 49 days pri-marily because they are able to shorten the size of ballot that from 27 to 20 inches.

in terms of our voter education cam-paign, the candidates debate was the num-

ber one activity that really got the voters to be excited and to really think about the candi-dates that were running for the elections. for the past 24 years, the emb of the country was not involved in the candidate debates. but this 2016, it was on the forefront. al-though this was an interesting experience, it was a good idea when it came up for consid-eration in september of 2015 but with just 8 to 9 months to the elections, paucity of time to organize these debates became a prob-lem as also the expertise to hold them and the resources to pay for them. so, the com-mission partnered with the biggest media entities in the philippines. to the commis-

sion, that was a good template for a public private partnership. they were able to mount three presidential debates in three regions of the country. unlike previous debates, they were always held in the capital, they wanted to make sure that they were being held out-side of the capital in the islands, the three main islands of the philippines which are lu-zon, visayas and mindanao. so, in terms of a game changer, the debates really played a very large role and they saw that as well in the us debates also. they tried to copy some of the best practices of the us de-bates. He said that if a country really wants to have an informed citizenry in respect of the issues and in respect of the candidates, the debates are the best way to do so.

So, in terms of a game changer, the debates really played a very large role and they saw that as well in the US debates also.


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comelec also made sure that there were proper election signage and posters but these were not just during election itself but even before the elections. they setup signage in high pedestrian traffic areas so that the voters will start to thinking in ad-vance about the elections and start to think about the process as well as the candidates that they would vote for. some of the signage was shown during the presentation. they also wanted to familiarize the voters with the vote counting machine used by the commis-sion during road shows to schools, in malls where the voters could have a hands- on- experience in respect of the vote counting machine. aside from the commission’s reg-ular website on elections, they also put up

a separate information website focused on the elections results. With a view to make sure that the elections were perceived to be credible, it was important that these features were put in place. a random manual audit to ensure that the vote counting machines were counting properly, transmission of re-sults was a very key component. longer it

takes to announce the results of an election, higher the chances of people saying that there was cheating or that there would be violence. they were able to complete the job a record 3 hours before; earlier it would take us 3 weeks to count the votes. in 2010 it was 3 days. but this 2016, 3 hours after the polls closed, people already had an idea who the next president was going to be be-cause 60% of the results had already been transmitted.

also, comelec provided for a voter receipt wherein just like in an atm machine, if one slides in the ballot; one would get a re-ceipt to demonstrate the candidates that you voted for. for disabled and illiterate voters, they had audio support wherein one could

hear from the machine, the people that you vot-ed for in case you are not one who personal-ly ticked off the boxes. other security features were the digital signa-ture, data encryption, and protection of the memory cards, uv de-tection features, all in accordance with our automated election law

and all to make sure that the security of the system was well maintained. similarly they had mock elections practice, they believe that practice makes perfect. so, the more mock elections are conducted, the better it is. they had a source code review to ensure that political parties and civil society orga-nization had access to the source codes of

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the various election systems that they were using. public ballot printing tracking system and an important innovation this year for pre-senting the results on website. they have 92,509 polling precincts with about 800 voters per polling precinct. each of the re-sults of those polling precincts was posted on a website so that each and every voter can do their own audit of the results. they can basically add up all the results of these 92,500 election returns that should total the number of votes given to each candidate.

He said that in respect of the election services comelec wanted to make sure that the polling places were more accessi-ble. the number of accessible polling places increased to 289 in 2016 compared to 4 voting centres in 2013. further work continues on this. indigenous people’s polling place was also set up. fili-pinos who belong to a tribes do not like to mix with the ordinary or the filipinos who live in the cities. so, the way to entice them to get them to vote is to cre-ate polling precincts where they actually live. and the comelec pioneered this in a province called mindoro and there was a 90% voter turnout because they were voting among themselves. they pioneered the concept of providing legal as-sistance in the polling precincts themselves in 14 regions in partnership with the phil-ippines bar. medical assistance, desk was

also set up at 2446 voting centres in order to help sick voters.

He said that because of the swiftness in transmission of results, number of protest cases went down as also the election relat-ed violence went down to 90 cases in 2016 against 109 cases in 2013. the accessibility audit was increased to 479 places. Higher registration is another interesting feature. many filipinos, because there are a lot of malls now in the philippines, would like to register there, in a place which is air condi-tioned, which is well lighted, well ventilated and is easy to go to. so, they pioneered mall voter registration in 2016 with approximately 500,000 mall voter registrations across 190 malls in philippines as compared to nil earli-

er. comelec are hoping to make mall vot-ing a reality in 2019.

He said that they were able to lever-age on strengths of technology. ballots used were precinct -specific, voting though manual counting is automated. the counting machines scan every ballot fed into them and save images in the sd card. the ma-


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chines have an audit log and it is easy to re-ally demonstrate to people how it works. He said that they spent a lot of time and effort to explain the process to as many people as possible the transparency features in the system and they also tried to engage various stakeholders to explain to them why and how the system was being operated and also to allow them to freely observe the preparations being carried out by the comelec.

He said that qualitatively the carter

centre was engaged for observing the ma-jor components of the elections in the phil-ippines. it was observed that most electoral stakeholders seemed to feel that automated elections of 2016 marked significant im-provement over previous philippine elec-tions. the national movement for free elec-tions also observed that the 2016 elections were better managed. the parish pastoral council for responsible voting (ppcrv) also observed that it was by far the best of the three automated elections since 2010. they were also able to get a few headlines in various philippine papers to say that close to 90% of filipinos believe that the elections were credible.

He added that interestingly, the 2016 international study entitled “rethinking de-bates” by the us based civic Hall and de-mocracy fund cited the comelec for its

innovative use of social media on first presi-dential debate after 24 years. the study re-corded a total of 303 million election related posts and hashtag #pilipinasdebates2016 registered 1.9 million tweets which resulted in the highest engagement on twitter for a presidential debate. the social media hits also included 35 million tweets and 268 mil-lion facebook posts.

in his conclusions he presented a pic-ture of way forward to build on what they

have achieved in 2016 as follows: continue with the assessment, consul-

tations, and dialogue with the stake-holders

enhance the independence of comelec

adopt international best practices push for the necessary legislative re-

formsHe closed the presentation with thanks

to the participation. ◆

It was observed that most electoral stakeholders seemed to feel that automated elections of 2016 marked significant improvement over previous Philippine elections.

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mr saneem started his presentation by thanking dr nasim Zaidi, the chief election commissioner of india for extending invita-tion to them to be a part of this historic occa-sion and also for allowing one of the smallest countries in the world to come and be part of this big event.

to begin with he shared a snap- on- band, one of the tools as a part of aware-ness platform. it’s a reflective band so when one goes out running especially in a

place like fiji, one can put these on so the headlights sign off on these and the driver knows, okay someone is wearing an elec-tion band. He said that since the interaction was about awareness he thought of starting with a demo. He also referred to some other popular awareness materials especially for schoolchildren.

He said that the topic of his presenta-tion is about a ‘545platform’, an sms based platform that they use in fiji. He began with

fiJi / Mr MohaMMad saneeM supervisor of elections and Head, fiJian elections office


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brief introduction about fiji on the world map, a small country in the middle of pacific ocean nearer to australia. voter population is around 600,000 and the total population is around less than a million. they have 110 islands. the ‘545platform’, is an sms plat-form which they activated on 28th of June for their 17th of september election in 2014. it covered 97% of the population. in 2014, the military government, after 80 years of military rule, announced that fiji will go to elections. they announced on 28th of march that he would be the supervisor of elections to run the elections on 17th of september that is a

period of just six months. it was an election that dramatically changed the electoral at-mosphere in fiji. from a seven days election they reduced the election to 1 day. there were some advance voting. from a vote any-where in your constituency, the voters were assigned to polling stations so it became precinct voting. they also reduced the num-ber of voters from as many as four thousand at a polling place to five hundred per polling station.

the immediate question from the voters was as to where will one vote? they found that in 2014, they had over 1.4 million mo-

bile phones for a pop-ulation of around 860 thousand. they have two mobile operators one is vodafone, the leading mobile opera-tor with over 600,000 active subscribers. this means, in terms of number of people, they would have 2-3 mobile phones per person. the second largest mobile oper-ator, though new in the market, has about 160,000 thousand active subscribers. at the elections, they had to disseminate infor-mation such as where to vote and the time at their disposal was rather short. they real-

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ized that in a place like fiji with numerous islands, it would be literally impossible for all of them to come down to the election office or for them to reach these people in the six months time frame.

He said that during elections, a lot of operational things change. sometimes one has to move voters because of exceeding numbers; or manage security situations and that meant immediate dissemination of in-formation. therefore, they interacted with the mobile operators to host a copy of the voter registration database with them and called upon the oper-ators to provide facil-ity to voters to sms at 545 (with their vot-er id number) which was a number given by the election office to both the operators. in fiji they have reg-istration system that allows a unique voter id to each voter. in re-sponse to the voter id, the system would automatically respond by providing the location and other details of their respective polling station.

He said that this may not look a very big operation, but this was fiji’s largest bill-board and they managed to secure this for two months and the entire voter needed to do was text their voter number to 545, that was simple. performance success wise, the sms platform on election day the 17th of september, received 116,000 plus que-ries. this is the highest number of queries

the vodafone and digicel network have ever received on their platforms. total number of sms from 20th June to 17th of september was 701,000. so, it was assumed that about 90% of the voters used this platform to check their polling stations. and the beauty of this system was that it provided an interactive platform for voters. so, if your 545 doesn’t come back to you with the polling place, you call on the number and it will send you to our call centre. the call centre received about 38,000 calls until the election day

voter queries were also dealt with in

a timely manner, the election office did not have to dedicate 100% staff to constantly respond to say where one is to go for voting, and they just had a machine do it first. it was a free of charge service to the voters and cost the election office 2 cents per sms. voters could always access the information on their phone so, one sends an sms, and the re-quired information comes back to the sender as an sms. a voter goes to a school and does not know where to look. He has just to send an sms and the desired information


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is there, it doesn’t disappear. He added that also found that it had the power of larger im-pact. many of the voters were a lot happier to be able to get information in comparison to the previous systems that they had, which was go to a polling place and find out that a voter has to go to the next one. in terms of strength, the system had 24 hour availability and it was very cost effective; and it provided an existing platform so voters required little

or no training. Weaknesses, they had some network issues as some parts of the country do not have network. He said that the data hosting on the mobile company service was a bit risky but in terms of opportunity, they are now looking at enhancing this to move to an internet based platform for younger us-ers. it is also being proposed to enhance the platform so that the voters have wider choice of services available to them. the threat, he said exists in hosting of the electoral data on an external party service especially when al-lows access to information on other voters also. it works two ways, for an example; voter a can help voter b in case he doesn’t want to use the system or a could also be a stalker.

He added that they also used social media in 2013 when they started facebook, they had 600 likes. they are currently tag-ging around 35,000 likes which is slightly

higher than some of the regional larger coun-tries. they have opened up youtube, radio, television advertising all the standard chan-nels for maximising the outreach.

He said that some of the key out-comes of the 2014 general election are that they recorded the lowest number of invalid votes in fiji’s history. it used to be 13%, 6%, 9%, earlier but they recorded 0.75%. some european union observers had an issue say-

ing it was too low, but it demonstrates the strength of the new electoral system. and they had attained 84.6% on a voluntary vot-ing system. if one looks at the complexities of an election, they had a precinct voting and it was a first time huge changes in the system. the turnout really proved that yes people knew where they had to go and he would attribute most of it to the sms query.

He played a small video clipping of sms545 and closed his presentation with thanks to participation. ◆

Many of the voters were a lot happier to be able to get information in comparison to the previous systems that they had, which was go to a polling place and find out that a voter has to go to the next one.

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she started her presentation with thanks to the eci and the undp leadership for rec-ognizing the importance of this event in giv-ing a platform on voter education to a global audience. she congratulated the organizers for putting this event together and for an im-pressive turnout of some 27 countries being represented at the conference.

she said that her presentation would focus on undp and the work that they do with different countries on elections. she

said that undp are working with many countries to support electoral process. they support some 65 countries per year pro-viding electoral assistance in various areas; whether it may provide support throughout the electoral cycle, so, a full comprehensive project, capacity building project or constitu-tional reform or they may work with civil so-ciety on enhancing voter education. so, they do the whole gamut of electoral assistance.

in the strategic plan 2014-17, undp

undP / Ms naJia hasheMee undp, reGional electoral policy specialist

united nations development proGramme


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adopts an integrated approach to supporting inclusive political processes (ipp) that aims to supporting and strengthening political processes and institutions and institutions for improving citizen participation, voice and accountability and rebuild a stronger and more inclusive social contract.

she said that the un system and undp in particular, have been providing election assistance on project basis. some-times the work gets cut off from other as-sistance areas such as parliaments, civil society. in this, they are changing and have a new strategic plan for integrating different activities together to encourage the use of other platforms within undp to disseminate your messages. there may be undp offices that work on a variety of areas whether it be Hiv, whether it’s police reform, with different ministries, ministry of education, finance etc. this available platform can be used to reach out to the voters, citizens especially in very remote areas through different programs of poverty reduction. she said that she would

advise and would encourage emb’s or their reps to approach undp leadership and see how you can include civic education and vot-er education messages in all their programs so as to help inter organization coordination and the work being do on civic education.

she said that at the national levels they focus on capac-ity building of the in-dependent and per-manent emb’s. they provide assistance es-pecially in the following areas: provide support to outreach and voter education; prevent electoral violence and support peaceful transitions; promote electoral

reforms; promote women’s participation as vot-

ers, candidates and electoral adminis-trators;

encourage political participation of vul-nerable and marginalized groups such as youth, women, persons with disabil-ities and indigenous people; facilitate south-south cooperation and peer to peer learning;

trainings, capacity building etc.she said that she would dwell upon

some examples related to support ict to highlight what undp have been doing to encourage the use of new technologies and social media to reach out to additional seg-ments of society. she said that it is important

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to appreciate that new technology is not the only way to reach citizens and should not re-place traditional means of voter education. but younger generation, new voters, young voters and many of us are connected on our phones, on facebook and we get our infor-mation through technology. she said that she gets 90% of her connect through her phone, through facebook, through youtube and all the major media houses have online information platform. therefore, technology is here, it’s here to stay and we need to find ways and creative innovative ways to use it to reach the citizens. she said that india is on

the cutting edge of this. there are impressive and great innovative ideas but she wanted to highlight the arab states because that is where she works currently. she would speak of the arab states in examples she presents in the following:

tunisia twitter: supported the election commis-

sion to develop an online game called democratweet

youtube: election song went viral inspir-ing youth throughout the country Jordan

facebook: the election commission used facebook to disseminate voter education messages

libya sms: key messages on the electoral

process sent to all subscriberstunisia provided a wonderful presen-

tation yesterday but that is also one of the success stories for undp in the arab states following the arab spring in 2011, there was a transition. the country went through a re-form process and undp was there support-ing the election commission and civil soci-ety organizations. she demonstrated some examples of use of technology and develop-ment of a social media and the games that they try to use to reach younger voters. she

said that arab spring was fuelled by young voters, by youth. therefore they had to find ways to reach them to make sure that they were familiar with the new process, every-thing was new for tunisia at that time. so, there was game called democratweet that was done with a media house and undp was supporting that process. and that really energized, the youth. in tunisia, the youth of course were already energized, but through this game and related engagement process, they empowered them through information that they needed to make sure that they vote in the correct places and that they were fa-miliarised with the broader civic educations aspects of why they are voting. another example of use of technology from tunisia, is the use of youtube. of course, many of

Therefore, technology is here, it’s here to stay and we need to find ways and creative innovative ways to use it to reach the citizens.


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youth already did theme songs for elections, but in tunisia, they uploaded the same on youtube and it really went viral and the song has become famous not only in tunisia but in the region itself and it really set the atmo-sphere for the election participation there.

sharing the experience from Jordan she said that the facebook users are grow-ing in there and they try to upload their voter education campaign materials on facebook itself. videos they have created through tradi-tional media like tv was uploaded on face-book and it’s getting a very large viewership from young voters. they just had election last month and they said it was one of the most effective ways that they were reaching out to their young voters and that was from feed-back they were receiving on that facebook page. and then from libya, more tradition-al forms of technology used through sms messages being sent to a greater audience much faster and in less expensive means through the use of sms. she said many of the emb’s are already doing this.

she presented the regional work done by the undp in the arab states as follows:

support at regional level: provide policy advice and programming

support to country level projects facilitate exchange of good practices,

per networking and knowledge creation and dissemination

arab states enhancing regional electoral knowl-

edge establishing the organization of arab

embs

strengthening electoral capacities of regional organizations (i.e. league of arab states)

promoting the participation of women and youth

regional: voter education and iCtshe said that they provide technical assis-tance on the same pattern as at the nation-al level to country office projects in country offices themselves. they also facilitate the exchange/sharing of experiences. she said that her presentation would focus on arab states and particularly where they are work-ing right now. their main focus is elections especially where that is new to a country in the region. they are trying to enhance the ex-isting knowledge in the region on elections through information, collecting information, disseminating information through the use of technology with following highlights:

Game app arabic, french, english lexicon of elec-

toral terminologyfacebook

pilot course on electoral systems with st. Joseph universitybeirutWhatsapp

regional online group of voter registra-tion experts.

she said that last year, they formed arab embs organization similar to fem-bosa in the asia region and similar orga-nizations that exist in other regions. they were the only region that didn’t have this network so they now have this organization

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and through arab embs. undp are trying to reach a greater number of voters to provid-ing information through various means. they have a website that is really growing in num-ber of viewers from all of the commissions in the region. and then they also work with regional organizations and states particularly focused on women and youth in that region.

she cited the example of developing voter education material in tunisia. they were looking for an arabic term for the expression ‘observer’ and they realized that there was no agreement on what the arabic term was for this word. there was debate; they realized there were three dif-ferent words in arabic that implied something like an observer and that really was the seed of the development of a lexicon of electoral terminology. she said that not only in tuni-sia, but in all the arab countries, there are variations and because elections are new particularly as a profes-sion, the terminology is not coherent. so, this lexicon took two years to develop, experts were involved, judges to really sit together and come to agreement on key terms that we use in the election world. she said that she included this in ict presentation because they are now in the process of developing an application so that youth can also access these terminologies and develop games for

voter education and may be will look to india for assistance. facebook: she said that they take up capacity building and information generation, one of the ways we are trying to reach young people is through universities. so, last week, they had a course with st. Jo-seph university in beirut on electoral system so they are trying to bring electoral topics to the academic world to try and reach students and graduates. and they did, they were very effective in using facebook to advertise that initiative through the university and they got

a third of the students came through face-book. they found the information on face-book and they registered to take the course. so, this was another example of how one can expand outreach using technology.

she said that another example from mid east region is from arab embs work-shop we did on voter registration last year. undp brought voter registration experts on a platform like this to exchange information but


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when they left they formed their own group on Whatsapp and ever since then they are communicating on a very regular basis, sending information on what they are doing, sending updates, asking questions from oth-er countries. so, really this Whatsapp has become a way of sharing information among professionals working in embs.

on the global level, they produce inno-vative knowledge products that advance the electoral cycle and approach the unidentified gap areas. they took up steps for strength-ening policy and programming support. they get their guidance from headquarters on policy issues and also knowledge products are generally produced globally. examples for technology on voting at the global level is in their online courses. she referred to are some of the topics that they offer at Global level for voter education and ict. e-learning courses on following topics are taken up: electoral result management; sustainability in electoral administration and credibility and acceptance of electoral processes. she said that an important aspect is to encourage the staff to take courses and also to give sug-gestions on additional topics for coverage.

she briefly discussed the issues for consideration in voter education and ict. some of the key issues are to ‘know your vot-ers’ as different voters have different learning styles. understand how best to reach your voting place. second issue came up as the real time information: use of mediums like social media require capacity building to have disseminate information instantaneous-ly. financial sustainability of use ict in elec-tions, including in voter education requires

financial and human resources implications in the form of continued support.

she added that she wants to say that technology should not be a replacement of the traditional voting tools but when you get to interact with your voters, when you talk to youth, you realize that they are getting the in-formation electronically. and so get to know your voters, ask them how they want their in-formation, how they receive their information, what they want to know. this kind of dia-logue can be developed through technology and they will help you to design voter educa-tion material that is really targeting the right audience with the right messages. but if you are going to use social media, it is very im-portant that you have up to date information provided on a real time basis. some embs that have tried to introduce social media do not have the staff or the resources allocat-ed to ensure that the facebook page for in-stance is up to date. our attention span is very short and we get bored with information that is static so it’s very important that you realize that introducing new technology es-pecially social media requires that you have dedicated people for that initiative.

she drew attention to an important as-pect in practice of ict that is sustainability of inducting ict in elections including voter education. once, you get your voters’ expec-tation raised you will have to continue it. you can’t stop after the elections so keep that in mind when you are designing your voter education especially when you are trying to integrate technology into it.

she concluded with thanks to the par-ticipation. ◆

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He started his presentation with greetings to the participation

in his presentation titled role of ict in voter education and feedback, he start-ed with a slide on evolution of man show-ing how the human beings evolved and now they are going down because they are al-ways looking at our phones, and the mobile phone has become very much a part of our existence. as of present with 1285 million population, we have 350 million active inter-

net users, 134million internet based social media users, 590 million unique mobile us-ers and only 97 million mobile based social media users (aug., 2016).

He said that ict in voter education is basically a big platform for building trust by enabling a two way communication with the voters. it can generate a reliable and contin-uous feedback with increased accessibility, transparency and credibility for entire elec-toral cycle.

india / Mr raJesh lakhoni cHief electoral officer, tamil nadu, india



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linkage to the mobiles have to be pre-ceded by computerisation of elector data-bases under due codification. the process of trust building and confidence of electors started in 1999 when the first computerisa-tion of all the electoral registration started in india. it meant manag-ing nationwide unified data base of almost one billion electors. nvsp launch in the year 2013 means voters can be offered lot more facili-ties resulting from com-puterised data bases.

simplified search of voter list is one such facility provided to the voters. modified online search facility has been provided in both Web and mobile applications to search by epic number and name / district.

search by epic facility helps electors to search their details in voter’s list using their epic number or name. if the epic number is provided, the details of the epic will be automatically generated from the electoral database.

the facility provides efficient output work on a split second search results. thus, this is most advanced search which has been provided by election commission of india on nvsp as well as on mobile app. a voter may just write some three digits for search and it is called Google pattern search. Goo-gle started first and now it is being done by election commission already. a voter can write one or two letters of his search with

may be one or two parameters and within a second he would get the result whether his name is there on the electoral role. this is important because during the election time, number of users everyday would be around 200,000 even in a small state.

He said that the second important is-sue is that most of the people want to reg-ister online. india, as such, has a around 26 languages, and all the electoral rolls are maintained bilingual. one cannot type in the entire database as typing in various languag-es across country is rather problematical. Google has great translation service, there-fore the moment you type in english, one can always make translation into any of the local languages and edit it as may be necessary.

He said that simplification of online registration has been launched through simplified, easy to use mobile app and web application that covers the following: name inclusion, correction, change of

address and display picture; simplified to 3 minutes from 30 min-

utes;

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tracking the progress of application; back end improvement ero net and

blo net; eliminated the filling up of paper based

electoral forms; online forms usage is 100% in prov-

ince of Kerala.

He said that it took almost six months to carry out the backend work for mapping electoral data base to the street name. in-dia in a small province of tamil nadu, the number of streets comes to about 300,000. each street had to be mapped; each constit-uency had to be mapped.

He said that yet another initiative was taken by the former ceo (presently one of the deputy election commissioners). He started tracking. once a citizen applies, he will be able to track. all this background work helped the ceo office in tracking voters. now it has almost eliminated paper based form. mentioning about he said that Kerala is one of the where paper based forms have been completely obliterated.

the picture is representative of youth

but there is something more to it. He said that it was not possible to insert this photo-graph in the electoral roll and he went on to narrate an interesting story. the issue is that the picture is very impressive but the pho-to in electoral roll was equally messy so he was afraid to put it there. so, that had to be just removed. He said that this was a major problem. He had a fight at my home when he delivered voter id card to his wife. she didn’t speak to him for one day at least. she said, what kind of photo he had put in her elec-toral card if it is so, she looked so beautiful whereas he had put a messy photo in the epic. that is a problem with all youth. they said their photos were really messy when it is black and white. they used to change the photos like in Whatsapp and in facebook, where one can change the display pictures. they worked on it and coined that phrase, ‘change your picture display’ and started an application in which a voter can upload his new photo, subject to backend approval process which is very elaborate and requires a lot of computerization at backend but they started it.

in brief he said that the mobile applica-tions integrated mobile app was launched on all platforms android, apple and windows. the app offers 15 ser-vices to the voters and other stakeholders. Highlights are as be-low: provides 11 voter


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services. users include public, political parties,

candidates as well as officers and on the day of poll, even the polling person-nel.

the applications are developed with plug and play platform that are conve-nient to re-use and compatible for other states also.

one can print it and change one’s pho-to for that one has to go to a common service centre and print your new pbc after a week after the ero approves your photo. the process was simplified

if the photos are similar. However, if the photos are dissimilar they have to go physically verify whether the same per-son’s photo is there or not. referring to the services provided on

mobile applications, he said that many peo-ple did not know where to go and vote es-pecially in urban areas they didn’t know their polling station and they had to call up. He explained the operation of a new app on mobile namely ‘Know your polling station - Google map and sms services’. this service provides an ‘online portal’ to get information about any polling station. for the first time in

india, interactive Goo-gle map services have been provided in the mobile app to get the geographical location of the polling station. in addition sms facili-ty also has been intro-duced to get polling station details.

this means that every polling station was geo tagged, a voter may just type his epic number and the Google will direct him to his polling station. it will actually guide you on the route to fol-low from your home or whichever location you are sending to the poll-ing station. this facility is very popular. but the

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application can be used only when internet connectivity is available. many of mobiles phones do not have data connectivity. sms services were started to engage voters and provide them efficient assistance. the ser-vices include the following: sms based service for e voter list,

queue status checking, poll monitoring and marking people as disabled were launched.

sms were sent to all 20 million regis-tered electors informing and involving them in poll process from nomination to poll day.

the list of con-testing candidates based on their ac was also sent through sms. 60 million sms were sent.

a voter just sends an sms and find out where is his name located, one can find one’s ad-dress, even reg-ister oneself as a disabled person (if applicable), one can get aware-ness messages, one can even get to know who is candidate in your location. all this develop-

ment in ict has helped

in reaching out to voters and that became easier because when everything is comput-erized and available on Wi-fi. linked to the laptops and reaching out to people in a max-imised effort. they started using laptops and reaching out to people whether one’s name is there or not. in absence of this facility, it used to take massive effort in moving bulky electoral rolls. When data base was moved to cloud and everything computerized with Wi-fi connectivity.

the electoral machinery started mo-bile Wi-fi service centres and people could check and it was the people moving from


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door to door, some bus stand, some college, a moving bus, or a car moving around the communities, going and stopping and talking to residents Welfare association to check their name, register, improve and facilitate.

He said that the digital publicity vans- cinema theatres direct content up-link-ing also became a big attraction especially in rural areas.a big digital van but the ict innovation and cinema theatre is that new

initiative. the content was not physically changed, it was all uploaded immediate-ly. one can even go live on these vans and not only in this publicity van which can move around, there are 1400 cinema theatres they used to launch anything and within half an hour it was running in all the cinema theatres across the state because every day the con-tent in cinema that is especially in multiplex-

es is being run through ict. the content was being uploaded. there is no time lag and one can strike uniformity of messages.

He said that everyone is familiar with Whats app and other messaging applica-tions. their multiplier effects are mindbog-gling. He explained that a message sent to a group of 250 people if repeated and for-ward by everyone that message would reach 62,500 people. second repeat forward

would mean reaching 15.6 million people and a third repeat forward (which is unlike-ly because there are so not so many users) would mean reaching 3.9 billion people with-in seconds. this is a huge powerful tool for sveep and voter education. there are many other messaging applications under use.

He took up the use of social media in voter education. He said that it was charac-

terized by features like universality, immediate feedback and impartial-ity. it was most interac-tive and broad based public outreach plat-form with stakeholder’s engagement in a two way communication with transparency lead-ing to credibility.

He said that they

It was most interactive and broad based public outreach platform with stakeholder’s engagement in a two way communication with transparency leading to credibility.

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have taken to using facebook, twitter and youtube as a means for social media connect in india. the number of users engaged through facebook is 126 mil-lion; with people under 35 that are using face-book is almost 85% to 89%. this means 18 to 35 is the age group to address the and reach out through facebook. similarly twitter engag-es almost 22 million young clientele through lively and light conver-sation and can be ef-fective in election quiz and engaging activities in voter education. He spoke of the other ini-tiatives such as peri-scope, the live twitter chat ‘periscope’- sup-ported by live tweet sessions and face-book live video chats with the ceo to dispel myths, and address any doubts the public may have with the elector-al process. in addition they have also started facebook live- press conference, memes to vote, election quiz. all these are ict initiatives that have gener-

ated a powerful and efficient connect with the voters.


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He said that this is extremely import-ant that an emb can send reminders to all

its voters one day before the poll day. any-one in tamil nadu, who accesses facebook

or twitter page, one day before, got a re-minder that next day is the voting day ‘please come and vote’. this facebook reminder can even be far reaching in its impact. once one opens one’s facebook page on that particular day, it provides valuable information along with the direction path to the polling station and poll-ing time. if one clicks at it, it will explain how to reach respective poll-ing station. they have a tie up with facebook that facilitates the pro-cess.

leveraging ce-lebrities citizen video: celebrities were en-rolled and invited for a larger connect with the voters in voter ed-ucation and awareness campaigns. He said that they encourage the celebrities to post their pictures on twitter or facebook to con-vey that they have vot-ed. the moment they voted, digitally signed

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cards were sent to all the voters. and it was some millions of cards were sent. this is of course a digital card, it’s a message signed by celebrity. this is a feature of facebook and twitter which they applied. it was noted that lot of people after the polling, wanted to upload the live feeds, means whatever they have done on their own facebook and Whatsapp chat.

He added fur-

ther initiatives under ict included creation of a youth corner that provided a variety of information like hosting winning entries from young voter festival, creations for social me-dia interventions, con-tact details of blos, campus ambassadors and nodal officers. special caller tunes for elections, dedicated youtube channel and digital library for access to audiovisual creatives on elections and voting were also developed and provided. special caller tunes were creat-

ed for elections, dedicated youtube channel and digital library for access to audiovisual


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creatives on elections and voting. He said that they did create even caller tune because mobile is so important. so, moment anyone is calling someone else the caller tune used to remind them.

‘no note for vote’ was a major ethical voting campaign in which lots of effort was put in. digital videos were prepared on this theme. 10 digital videos were uploaded on facebook etc with an interesting response

from the viewership in the form that around 150 videos were prepared by the people and they uploaded on facebook and twit-ter which were much better than their videos and which they are using in their own cam-paign. thus it was digital content creation that really helped them on twitter and face-book and other social media.

He said that someone asked the ques-tion as to whether it is expensive to use twit-

ter and video. of course it may cost some mon-ey, but the kind of feed-back and the content which the sender gets is much more valuable and can reach large number of people. the content is done in an e-book form for easy download on Kindle or one can download it on

i pad or phonebook and read it otherwise as a brochures. it is really an innovative exercise done. He mentioned briefly about the digital library which was very unique to up

speaking about election Watch a mobile app and web application has been launched and he said that it is a fine tuned mobile app and web application to monitor poll related posts on various platforms such as facebook, twitter and other social media

channels. it monitors texts, images, audios and videos on all social media platforms and is supported by automated social lis-tening-cum-analyzing software that senses sentiments also.

He said that ‘election Watch’ does not mean that the emb’s have to really watch what is feedback. it helps in monitoring what is being talked around. this is a unique ap-plication which they have launched and the

‘No note for vote’ was a major ethical voting campaign in which lots of effort was put in. Digital videos were prepared on this theme.

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election offices can really watch what is happening. one has to click the keyword and find out. With this application they have put up a display on the backside and one can watch what is being talked about. Key-words of choice help find out what post has been put there and what is being talked about. even you can put controversial words and whatever is available on social media, it can be found out but if you don’t really have to ask anyone you can just do a search. it’s a very useful and efficient application.

He said that they had gone one step ahead and integrated their complaint man-

agement system. one interesting feature was that one person went for voting, his name was not found in the voter list, maybe it was misplaced so he imme-diately comes out and puts on facebook that ‘my name is not there in the voter list’. this was picked by this applica-tion, it was tagged to the concerned dro, it is all automatic at the backend and one does not have to wor-ry much on this score. the answer came very quickly. the problem was solved in 7 min-utes time.He said that pulse – social me-dia listening solution

is a ‘live dashboard ‘provided to see the incoming feeds/complaints/enquiries on a real-time basis. the complaints were auto-matically registered with pGrs to ensure immediate action and qualitative disposal. further online service was provided to the public to know the current queue status at the polling station. sms facility – sms q<epic number> to 1950 to know the queue status through sms

these applications assist a number of people of different categories. for illustra-tion, disabled people wanted to book wheel chair for their own use, that was done on-


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line on mobile, everything is mobile friend-ly of course you can use. there is another issue is 360 degree grievance because people, lot of people want that complaints, grievance to be reduced. this i call 360 de-gree is that i said on facebook, tweeter but on any media register a complain whether you write on facebook, tweeter or you go to your blogging site or you call up us, you send us sms, you send us email, you send us a Whatsapp, whatever way you complain the complaint will go to a common portal and one can watch what is happening on one’s complaint on real time not only you, everyone can watch what is happening on your com-plaint because it provides online feedback. and one interesting feature is that the mo-ment it is not addressed within 24 hours, the complaint is resolved.

Wheel chair bookings: online facili-tation were provided through both web and mobile applications to book a wheel chair for a person with disability or old aged people to get accessible polling stations and required support. Wheelchair and required people’s help were provided at polling stations to the

disabled people.He presented

the 360 degree Griev-ance redressal sys-tem. Highlights of the system include unifi-cation of all complaint channels, Web, e mail, mobile, messaging ap-plications, using mo-bile technology and back end mapping for

instantaneous communication to grievance redressing officer, online tracking and feed-back by complainant, transparency – details available for everyone to peruse and auto-matic escalation to next higher officer in case of delay

He said that the ict has been lever-aged to provide results through mobile link up or the desk top efficiently and this was in fact a solution to the avoiding crowding the counting Halls or the counting centers.

in conclusion mr lakhoni said that this presentation he had made, demonstrated the power of ict and its utilization especially in reaching the voters efficiently and effec-tively in different parts of the country.



14:15 - 17:00

New Delhi

OctOber

19-212016

Voter Education for Informed and Ethical Voting


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Chair

HE Mr a P yadaV, cHief election commissioner, nepal &

HE Ms nOtEMba tJIPuEJa, cHairperson, electoral commission of namibia

Moderator

Mr dILEEP sHarMa, director General, eci.

oPening reMarks by the Chairs

Presentations

afGHanistan: Mr. awrangzEb, actinG ceo.

braZil: Mr. fabIO LIMa quIntas, director

Kenya: Mr rasI MasudI, director

malaysia: Mrs. nOrLInaH bIntI JaMMan, cHief assistant

maldives: Mr aMzad Mustafa, vice-cHairperson, maldives election commission and Ms. nazMa nIzaM, administrative officer and civic education officer.

mauritius: M.I. abdOOL raHMan,electoral commissioner

tHailand: Mr. suPacHaI sOMcHarOEn, cHairman

uGanda: Mrs. PEnInaH sEkabEMbE, principle election officer

united KinGdom: Mr karaMJIt sIngH, trustee, malaysia commonWealtH studies centre

israel: Ms OrnIt sHanI, senior lecturer, Haifa university

india: Mr uMEsH sInHa, deputy election commissioner

health break/ tea & Coffee

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at the outset he thanked the chief election commissioner of india and his fellow com-missioners and the undp for organizing this conference and inviting him for participation.

He started his presentation with brief introduction to his country that is afghani-stan. officially called as the islamic republic of afghanistan. it is a land locked country lo-cated between south asia and central asia. afghanistan has a population of approxi-mately 32 million. afghanistan is bordered by

pakistan in south and east, iran in the west, turkmenistan, uzbekistan, and tajikistan in the north and china in the far northeast. af-ghanistan has one of the most illiterate pop-ulation of the world. only 40% of population is literate. afghanistan has been engaged in civil war for about four decades and more than half of the population is living in unse-cured areas. about 12 million people are eligible to vote in afghanistan. they have in afghanistan, the independent election com-

afghanistan / Mr aWrangzeb actinG ceo

independent election commission of afGHanistan


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mission iec to look after the election work.He said that the independent elec-

tion commission (iec) of afghanistan was established in 2006 according to the article 156 of the constitution of the country with a mandate to administer and support and supervise every kind of election as well as refer to general public opinion of the people in accordance with the provision of the law. He said that he will provide an overview of the iec public outreach department that is responsible for planning, implementing and monitoring of voter information campaigns, preparation and development of the voter in-formation and electoral procedural materials, electoral education, coordination of the voter information activities and the monitoring of voter information activities.

He said that the elections in afghan-istan, though started in 1960s, had to be stopped till the end of the taliban regime due to civil war. after taliban regime, they had three elections during last 12 years with different turnout as follows. in 2004, the final voter turnout was about 7 million. in 2009, about 4 million and in 2014, they had a turn-out about 6.5million. fortunately, they made a good progress in decreasing the disquali-fied votes. in 2009,they had about 28% dis-

qualified votes but in 2014 elections, they had only about 10%disqualified votes.

informal education is yet the preferred method of voter education in afghanistan because security challenges in the country, a strong tribal structure of their society, influ-ential religious networks, cultural limitations. they have used several methods for educa-tion of electoral literacy, direct and indirect methods. 1450 civic and voter educators were deployed including 31% female edu-cators. indirect voter education methods in-cluded sharing printed communication ma-terials like leaflets, brochures, sample ballots, mock ballots, posters, stickers, flipcharts, flipchart manuals, banners, pocket calendars and fact sheets. they had a mobile theatre performance all around the country besides

election’s toll free call centre number 190 with approximately 7000 hours of toll free access to the voter information hotline. they also used text message from mobile and used website for training, electoral literacy, social networks like facebook, twitter, you-tube etc. direct methods for voter education and awareness included conducting semi-nars in all provinces, coordination meetings with csos. and three radio psas in farsi and pashto broadcast through 47 region-

They had increased female participation in the country. Finally, according to our survey 82% percent of Afghans continue to consider elections to be a good thing and this is very good news for them.

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al and three national stations. 20 television psas in dari and pashto broadcast through 23 national and 7 regional stations and poll signs and billboards.

in outcomes, iec call centre operators responded to approximately 2 million calls from 16 July, 2015 to december 2014. vot-

er educators reached an estimated 6.6 mil-lion people. mobile theatre performance, estimated 8.4 million reached through tele-vised psas, estimat-ed 16.7 million people reached through radio psas. they had in-creased female partic-ipation in the country. finally, according to our survey 82% percent of afghans continue to consider elections to be a good thing and this is very good news for them. afghanistan is facing a lot of prob-lems and challenges in electoral literacy. and among them are ge-ography as they have a lot of mountains, cold weather, ethnic and lin-

guistic diversity, a high illiteracy rate, security etc. they have engaged in war and taliban is fighting all over the country. they have cul-tural barriers to reaching key target audienc-es, for example, women. He closed his pre-sentation with thanks to the participation. ◆


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He started his interaction with special greet-ing to dr. nasim Zaidi and all staff of elector-al commission of india, who have organized this outstanding conference. He also thanked undp and said that he was very honoured to be participating in the conference.

He said that his presentation would highlight a specific experience in brazil with the objective to expose in general terms an example of a successful practice of electoral literacy in everyday life that enhances rep-

resentative democracy and supports formal channels of political deliberation. the exam-ple comes from rio de Janeiro in an area of petroleum exploitation. the project is called “petroleum territories: royalties and citizen watch in the campos basin.” the project started in 2014 and lasted 24 months. the project works through (i) awareness pro-cess (between 1st and 13th month); (ii) training process (between 14th and 24th month) and (iii) implementation of citizen

brazil / fabio liMa Quintas director, electoral Judicial scHool, superior electoral court

electoral Judicial scHool, superior electoral court

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Watch centers.He said that in order

to give an overview of the brazilian framework in polit-ical and electoral issues, it is important to look at the bra-zilian constitution of 1988. it represents a very important moment in the history of bra-zilian democracy after the period of military dictator-ship. it is known as the citi-zen’s constitution because it has introduced an extensive list of rights. it has assumed a substantial commitment to democracy, pluralism and social development and established import-ant mechanisms to promote a strong civil so-ciety and to ensure access to justice. for the purpose of these reflections, it is important to visit the political and social backdrop that includes re-democratization process, the brazilian constitution of 1988: “the citizen constitution” and the formal education: the issue of teaching politics in schools.

a slogan introduced by the govern-ment that spread all over the country sums up the thought, ‘brazil loved it or leave it’. this concept was taught in the schools because it was mandatory in the curriculum. He said that this element is important to understand how they deal with political and electoral ed-

ucational as one aspect. He said that they do have some difficulty in facing this issue in formal education. the state has to be cau-tious about teaching politics in the schools. the state and the schools must respect dif-ferent views of democracy and politics.

considering this framework, he said that he would interact about the brazilian experience in political participation. in bra-zil, the exercise of the vote is considered a duty by citizens, men and women from 18

to 65 years old are obliged to vote. He said that the constitution provides a robust legal frame of work to protect their right to vote without any discrimination. the election pro-cess is organized by the elections branch of the superior court of electoral Justice.

to start with they have a truthful regis-

In Brazil, the exercise of the vote is considered a duty by citizens, men and women from 18 to 65 years old are obliged to vote.


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tions tration process. they spend a large amount

of human and economic resource to guar-antee the fairness of the electoral process. they have some problems with the econom-ic power, election financing, media influence. However, he said that the challenge to im-prove brazilian democracy lies in another area. as in many countries, there is a crisis in brazilian democracy. people do not see themselves truly represented by the politi-

cians. there is a problem of accountability. at a go any formal voting demands a company that day to day work done by the politicians during their mandate. the worst word is social con-trol over the government not only in the elections but be-tween the elections.

He said that brazil is a large country with a large number of initiatives and one needs to control the political resource involving people and organizations of civil society and the state agents as well from all the three branches of government. He said that he represents specifically an environmen-tal education project focus-ing on the enhancement of citizenship. this project was financed by an oil compa-ny as a legal duty derived from the exploitation oilfields at campos basin of rio

de Janeiro. it is coordinated by a university following the guideline established by the federal environment agency of brazil. this project called ‘patrolling territories, royalties and citizen Watch in the campos basin’ . the project started in 2014 and lasted 24 months. during this study that preceded the authorization to exploit oil in the campos basin of rio de Janeiro, it was defined that people have no information about how the oil

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industry could interfere in the life of the com-munity. in fact, it is important to emphasize that brazilian legislation obliges oil compa-nies to pay periodically a fee to the munici-palities as compensation for the use of natu-ral resource. this money represents in some case up to 50% of the municipal budget.

the objective of this project is to deal with the citizen’s lack of information and im-prove mechanisms for social control over the

use of political resource especially the roy-alties. it’s important to see that royalties are temporary incomes. the project established educational activities in three stages. first, they had an awareness process. it was done by an itinerant pedagogical group called ‘the caravan of citizenship’ to transmit and re-ceive information from the people. the cara-van consists of a mobile unit with multimedia and expositions rooms. the activities done by the caravan offer notions about environ-mental education and citizenship and devel-op social cultural activities such as movies, theatre, debates. in the second stage they had a training process. 10 to 12 agents in each municipality involved in the project cho-sen between community leaders from differ-ent society segments were selected such as

members of resident’s association, labour unions, trade associations, school teachers associations, hula workers, fishing commu-nities, students associations etc. in the third stage, they had the implementation of the cit-izen watch centres. the groups were formed to interact with local authorities acting in the surveillance. this group should mobilize the civil society.

after the awareness process of the

population and the training process of their agencies of education action, 10 centres of citizen watch were formed in the munic-ipalities covered by the project. in these last steps the focus was on direct approach about the use of royalties to promote an ac-tive citizenship. as a result of the project, we can say that there was a better perception by the population about the impact of their royalties and the receipts of the municipali-ties. However, the complexity of the subject indicates that a permanent study is neces-sary to consolidate the learning process. Well, there is a new cycle of the project in preparation to start next year.


He said that Brazil is a large country with a large number of initiatives and one needs to control the political resource involving people and organizations of civil society and the state agents as well from all the three branches of government.


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mr rasi masudi, started his presentation with appreciating the election commission of india and undp and all participants and organizations that chose to come to this conference. He said that it is a wonderful conference with so much to learn from shar-ing experiences and best practices of differ-ent countries.

opening his presentation he said that in Kenya iebc runs the election based on the constitutional mandate. the commission

has established a directorate responsible for conducting voter education. they have de-veloped a voter education curriculum, a train-ing manual and also hand books to guide the commission and its partners. they work with other strategic partners for implementation of voter education. the curriculum is utilised to guide everyone as they conduct voter educa-tion. the purpose of conducting voter edu-cation is like another public education. in this they are trying to inform and empower voters

kenya / Mr rasi Masudi director, voter reGistration partnersHips, iebc

independent electoral and boundaries commission Kenya

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to clearly understand their rights and respon-sibility in the electoral process, trying very much to improve the process of democracy, mobilize the voters to access their rights in politics and enhance their understanding of participatory democracy. the idea is to em-power the people to impart knowledge to the citizens to promote ethical behaviour in the electoral process and also promote citizen’s conviction that it is they who have the pow-er to, and the means to elect a democratic, transparent, accountable and competent government that is going to support them in their social, economic and political interest.

in order to ensure effective participa-tion and ethical voting, voter education must really be done on a continuous basis across the entire electoral cycle. so, as the com-mission we are looking at doing voter edu-cation from the pre-election phase where the key issue is to look at the legal framework. the constitution provides a very good frame-work for conduct of elections and there are several enactments in place including regu-lations. further, there is need to ensure that the voters and stakeholders understand the law. during pre-election period they take a lot of time to educate voters on the legal frame-

work, various acts and provisions, their rights and what is it that they can use to ensure to solve any challenges in the electoral process. further, boundary delimitation is also very important and the commission ensure that voters are aware of the boundaries of the constituencies and the elective positions in such boundaries. voter registration is import-ant so that all eligible citizens are registered on time. voter register inspection needs to be done meticulously within the time frame so that the register should be clean at the time of election.

He said that during the election phase,

the voters need to be educated about the de-scription of elective positions, special inter-est group, participation of women, youth and people with disability. during the nomination period, during campaigns and also dispute resolution, they educate voters to ensure that they know how to resolve disputes in the event of challenges during the nominations followed by campaigns. further, the voter education must cover the voting process, marking the ballot, vote counting and tabu-lation, transmission, issues in diaspora regis-tration and voting, the presidential run off for a candidate to win an election as a president,

The commission has established a directorate responsible for conducting voter education. They have developed a voter education curriculum, a training manual and also hand books to guide the commission and its partners.


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he must get 50% of the votes plus one vote. in the event that you don’t vote, you will be forced to go to a runoff and this is import-ant feature that the voters must know. and of course, acceptance of results, they have had a lot of challenges so it is important that a leader also knows the result that is either win or lose. in the post election period again, there the emphasis is on the issues around dispute resolution under the law that is the election petition and also living together in a peaceful way after the election.

He said that the iebc has a structure within itself with 290 offices, they are found-ed on the basis of the 290 electoral constitu-encies in Kenya. they also have 47 counties organized in 17 regions and then they have the national office. as such they have staff at those levels and they conduct voter edu-cation across the constituencies in collabo-ration with their partners. they also partner with international, national and community voter education providers. they empower accredit community based organizations (cbos) through accred-itation process to enable them conduct voter edu-cation. they engage vot-ers through media such as tv, radio, print and social media. they also have road shows at the county and constituency level and participate in so-cial, cultural and educa-tional events. they involve schools, the school chil-dren and their parents; He

said that they have since finalized curriculum for the schools both at primary and second-ary schools. they engage stakeholders at all the levels. Kenya has many religions so, they work with the faith based organizations and religious leaders to ensure that they reach voters through them because they are very good effective structures and there is always an opportunity for religious leaders to re-late with the voters in the churches or in the mosque every week.

He said that they engage respected influential personalities and celebrities. most of these people are really those who earned respect among the society in Kenya. they have very good athletes, very good young people in entertainment who when involved in programs, pull big crowds; and especially those who run programs in televisions and radio programs. they have the annual vot-er education week. they saturate that week with a lot of voter education activities across the country and include media, social media, outreach in their field, schools etc. they be-

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come a talking point for the entire nation in terms of engaging. they strategically choose the week at the time that they want to push a certain agenda such as registration or any particular electoral activity at the time of mass voter education week or the annual voter ed-ucation week. they partner with state and non state actors and he presented a pictorial view of road show with celebrities.

He said that with the voter education activities mentioned in the foregoing, out-comes are increased participation of regis-tered voters, reduced cases of electoral violence and fraud, reduction in spoiled or rejected votes, increase in the participation of youth, women and people with disability, enhance secre-cy of their ballot, freedom of choice and of course in-formed voters means get in-formed choices.

referring to the plat-forms that they use in voter education, he said that their website, bulk sms, the tele-vision, radio programs, par-ticularly the vernacular radio station reach all section of Kenyans. they run hotspots during prime times, have posters, fliers, stickers and brochures. referring to some of the booklets/ materials that they normally have posters, brochures, stickers, one may not understand some of the

languages, some of them are in swahili and mixed up of youth language in swahili which sometimes they may not even understand but they understand the posters and fliers that they run are very engaging and educative, for example ‘are you a registered voter?’

He said once a person answers that question, he can go down there and he is told, ‘register now at your nearest regis-tration centre’. incidentally, he said that they have an election next year so the presented posters are a part of the campaign they are


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running. He presented the poster on voting procedure, a systematic way of showing a voter how they can go and vote.

He said that also have programs to sensitize citizens residing outside, Kenya di-aspora. right now they are doing it within the east african region but they may scale up this and he shared some of the channels that they used last time we had the general election.

He said that they are running voter ed-ucation through primary schools where they distribute the leaflets for the children to bind their parents to maintain peace during the elections because if they bring violence, then they will not be able to pursue their educa-

tion. so, it becomes a powerful tool for every parent to be influenced by the child to say ‘please dad, next week there is an election, can you maintain peace?’

He said that they have developed vot-er education curriculum for schools with the help of Kenya institute of curriculum devel-opment. they are also working with the uni-versities in this regard also as this is an are a

where they have very active youth who can go into a positive role or they become violent. so, they are engaging them through appro-priate voter education. they have partnered

with Kenyatta university. He said that they are

working with undp in Kenya to develop programs for ad-dressing women, youth etc besides partnering with oth-er development players within their country. they have a very good arrangements with these organizations and in fact they have given them a lot of sup-port. the role of universities and staff of course, they are profil-ing the issue that they should

be examples, they should be role models to other youths and they should be able to exer-cise their rights to participate in the election, reach out for peace, participative in politics after they are through and even in the way they are conducting their election and of course shunning tribalism which is a problem in Kenya. He closed his presentation with thanks to the participation. ◆

school Children leafleta special brochure was prepared for stu-dents in primary schools to carry home to their voting age parents/guardians. this strategy targeted 9.5m school children in both public and private schools. incon-junction with the directorate of children services organized a successful Kenya children assemblyelections.

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While sharing greetings from the election commission of malaysia, she conveyed sin-cere thanks and appreciation to the Hon’ble chief election commissioner of india, dr. nasin Zaidi and also to the undp for inviting ecm to be part of this international confer-ence.

she began her presentation with brief introduction about malaysia the country that lies in the heart of south east asia. it com-prises of two distinct regions viz peninsular

malaysia and borneo consisting of sabah and sarawak. the country covers of an area 33,434 sq. Km. malaysia is a federation comprising 13 states and 1 federal territory. as of July 2016, total population of malay-sia is estimated at 31.7 million with 0.5 mil-lion increase as compared to 31.2 million in 2015. malaysia is a parliamentary democra-cy with federal constitutional monarchy sys-tem. the paramount ruler commonly referred to as yang di-pertuan agong is the head

Malaysia / Ms norlinah binti JaMMan cHief assistant, election commission

election commission malaysia


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of the state. this monarchy is selected for 5 years term from among their own number of 9 hereditary rulers of sultan of peninsula malaysia.

the election commission is now 59 years old. they have conducted 13 general elections and more than 150 by-elections. since independence in 1957, malaysia maintained a multi party electoral system. this means that any of the currently regis-tered political parties can upon obtaining the majority of votes, form the government. this is done on basis of multi party election system and first past the post and the single member territorial con-stituency where only one candidate is to be voted in any one constituency. election commission of malaysia office is located at every 13 states and one federal territory. she said that her presenta-tion would dwell on three areas, first on unregis-tered qualified electors, second on election cam-paign and thirdly on voter turnout.

she said that it has been a challenge for them to maintain registration awareness. since registration and voting is not compul-sory in malaysia and age of registration is 21 years in malaysia, the number of qualified electors as in July 2016 is 17.9 million and out of this only 13.6 million have turned out and registered. thus there are about 4.4 mil-lion people that is 24.3% of voter population

who are qualified but not yet registered as a voter. therefore, a continuous voter educa-tion initiative has been made through various communication strategies for urban and rural areas.

for urban areas, ecm conduct pro-grams in civil public areas such as shopping complex and other public private gathering places. as for rural areas, ecm uses mobile van, a caravan, and formal drive vehicle to conduct voter registration by reaching the in-terior where those who are qualified but not yet registered reside at this moment.

she said that both the initiatives have effectively helped the ecm to reduce the gap and maximise registration of qualified voters. additional continuous publicity is also carried out through television, radio, newspaper, advertisement and posters. this promotion activities are conducted at all state election offices throughout the coun-try. malaysia at the moment is still maintain-ing the practice of manual registration which

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requires an elector to come to ecm office or through assistant registrar appointed from among representative political parties, post office agent or government agency, to fill in and sign the form. the challenge is the younger generation as they prefer to register online. unfortunately, the current legal provi-sion requires the elector to present himself to be registered by filling the prescribed reg-istration form.

as of July 2016, they have appointed 13,223 assistant reg-istrars to represent the ecm in the registering of new electors. apart from above initiative, ecm also faces difficulties in reaching out to the peo-ple since the develop-ment cannot be done in some areas specifically in remote area. this is due to several factors. among others, is the unique ge-ography factor especially in sabah and sarawak which result to the lowest number of people being registered as electors? Hence, they recognized the voter education can play important role in building awareness for quality electoral partici-pation among voters to ensure that the electoral process in malaysia con-

tinues to be free, fair and transparent in line with the conference theme with ‘no voter to be left behind.’

the second topic she spoke on was about election campaign. election cam-paign in malaysia is guided by provisions of the 1958 act; ecm can establish election campaign enforcement teams to monitor the election campaign and to enforce the law of election on participating candidates


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during the campaign period. the team com-prise of one representative from each of the contesting party, royal police malaysia, and representative from local district officer. their responsibility is to monitor the cam-paign activities including the campaign ma-terial as well as posting and to make sure that material has been done ethically. this in-cludes the usage of sensitive words and slo-gans according to the rules and regulation stipulated under the law. for example, if the post-er or banner didn’t follow the rules and regulation, the representative will become the spokesper-son to the party that the poster or the banner to be taken down. this ap-proach is so far helping them a lot in managing electoral process and to make sure that elections are conduct in peaceful manner, indirectly make voter feel safe to go out and vote. therefore, by appointing representative for each contesting party to be part of the team, it is to ensure campaign is carried out smoothly and safety in compliance with the rules and regulations. as for contesting can-didates, the deposit of usd 1,210 and the state assembly state for 726 is

compulsory. this is the deposit of the con-testing candidate. apart from the deposit, he must apply for the permit for any election campaign material from state election officer and local authority. if a candidate fails to re-move the campaign material within 14 days, the deposit will be forfeited should the cost of removing the election campaign material exceed the deposit; the difference shall be paid by the candidates under the section 24

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of the election offense act 1954.candidates are allowed to campaign

period starting after the nomination day and must end on 12 midnight before polling day. campaigning may take place in vari-

ous forms but a public rally without permit is not allowed. However, there are circum-stances whereby the political parties still doing campaign on the polling day that may cause chaos. this is one of the challenges that today’s ecm in educating the candi-dates and the leader concerned to ensure that they understand their role and responsibility. it is vital to ensure that political parties and their supporters abide by the rules and regulation for campaigning as per the permitted timeframe. in addition, to ensure trans-parency of the contesting candidate in managing his campaign expendi-ture, he must also submit the statement of election expenses to the ecm

within 31 days of publication of the election results. failing to submit election expenses statement is an offense under the law. this may become a ground for disqualification from contesting in the next election. they set

the rules to ensure that the contesting party are more ethical in a way of the importance of regulation compliance and vice versa en-suring the election process to be conducted in a peaceful manner.

she said that the last one is voter turn-out. it is a measure of citizen participation in

However, there are circumstances whereby the political parties still doing campaign on the polling day that may cause chaos. This is one of the challenges that today’s ECM in educating the candidates and the leader concerned to ensure that they understand their role and responsibility.


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politics. it is usually expressed as the per-centage of the voters who cast votes. this total number of voters includes those who cast blank or invalid votes also as they still participate. While number of registered vot-

ers has been increase in recent year, voter turnout on the other hand has been fluctu-ating. the average voter turnout of the past five general election stands at 75.04% and statistic show that the highest voter turnout at 84.8% was recorded at the 13th general election in 2013. ecm is doing a lot of ef-fort to encourage people to go out for voting. However, most of the people were not see-ing the importance of voting as part of their responsibility for the country due to the fact that voting is not compulsory in malaysia.

polling is carried out for one day and time of polling normally is from 8 am to 5 pm in most urban area and 8 am to 1pm in rural area. polling is held in school, town hall and community centres. during the general elec-tion 2013, they set up 8,253 polling centres and 26,244 polling stations. voter turnout is also affected by the multiple factors such as personnel, safety reason, weather conditions

and also communication difficulties. there-fore, ecm developed a close relationship with the media in channelling the information about the election. they emphasize training for voter’s education with all election partic-

ipants such as contestants, supporters and party agents through training, promotion and media to ensure that voters understand the process. they also hope to enhance ethic as a part and parcel of the democratic partici-pation. ecm hopes to see increasing num-ber of electors to be registered and go out for voting especially the young generation as they are the future of democracy. in order to achieve the objective, voter education will be continued to be carried out. the media publicity also plays important role to con-vince the people about the free and fair of electoral system conduct in malaysia. she shared a video of one of our outreach team at ‘pos legap’ to demonstrate outreach and connecting with people in rural areas


ECM developed a close relationship with the media in channelling the information about the election. They emphasize training for voter’s education with all election participants such as contestants, supporters and party agents through training, promotion and media to ensure that voters understand the process.

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mr mustafa, speaking on behalf of election commission of maldives thanked the indian election commission for hosting this inter-national conference and expressed special gratitude to dr. nasim Zaidi, chief election commissioner and election commissioners from election commission of india as well as undp and all the participants. He said that they are trying to implement ict in the

maldives by introducing e-voting system. the knowledge they have received from this conference will be very useful to the election commission of maldives as they want to in-tegrate it to the new electoral system to be developed. this conference will prove to be beneficial to all the participating emb’s as it provides first hand and in depth sharing of experiences in voter education and inclusion

Maldives / Mr aMzad Mustafa vice-cHairperson, maldives election commissionMs nazMa nizaMcivic education officer and administrative officer

election commission of maldives


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of the community in elections. He felt the in-formation session will help them in making election successful, credible, transparent, free and fair. He mentioned that the presen-tation for maldives ms nazma nizam civic education officer follows.

starting with introduction to maldives, ms nazma said that she would focus on current voter education, voter ed-

ucation plans under planning by maldives for the future and brief conclusion. referring to the constituencies map of maldives, she said it shows as to how the constituencies are dis-tributed. maldives is geo-graphically dispersed is-lands numbering around 1,190 in total and within these islands there are only 120 which are in-habited. she discussed ‘Haa alif atoll’ that com-prises 5 constituencies.

constituencies are divided by the number of population that is 5,000 each constituency. she said that there are a lot of islands like that. these islands for easy administrative purposes, are divided into administrative di-visions for easy management and thereafter

constituencies have been created.the current civic education program

has been developed in four modules in col-laboration with the undp. it includes de-

The current civic education program has been developed in four modules in collaboration with the UNDP. It includes democracy, rights, roles and responsibilities of citizens and the right to vote. They are conducting training sessions for the students through schools as well as NGOs. The education also covers all vulnerable areas, atolls and islands.

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mocracy, rights, roles and responsibilities of citizens and the right to vote. they are con-ducting training sessions for the students through schools as well as nGos. the edu-cation also covers all vulnerable areas, atolls and islands. they use the print media as well as tv, radio programs for voter education which is continuously being processed on

daily and weekly basis. social campaign, social media voter education campaigns are suc-cessfully used because maldives people quite educated and , the liter-acy level is comparatively high. number of people adopting the new tech-nological improvements is increasing. thus, so-cial media campaigns have been found to be quite effective in mal-dives. they also conduct road events as to gather the knowledge and in-formation from the politi-cal parties as well as the stakeholders and also to provide the awareness messages and the mate-rials as may be required.

she shared some posters and banners for voter education and vot-er awareness in respect local council election 2017 prepared by the

ecm for helping the voters. these materials relate to registration, complaints in respect of voter registry, a message to people ’po-litically having a different view is not a prob-lem.’ and a toll free no. 1414 for registration. during the elections they can call this num-ber at any time as it is a 24 hour working station. they can call or text message where


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they can get back a text message.voter education plans for we are hav-

ing, we are at the time being, for the time being we

she said that they are in the process of formulating voter education strategy for the next upcoming five years and with the help of undp. they are planning to use signage boards throughout the country so that they can deliver messages efficiently through the signage and also they are planning to come up with a mobile application through which they can download ios as well as android users can use this application and get the information and the messages from election commission as well as the stake-

holders. from ecm side the messages that they want to deliver can easily reach them because from age of 12 or 13 onwards there is no maldivians, doesn’t use smart phones. so, they can easily reach the younger as well as the elderly people.

and for the conclusion she said that through this conference they have got to learn a lot especially for electronic voting as they are starting to go for electronic voting. she said that they need to learn a lot from india and other participants as they have very rich experience and she proposed to take a variety of ideas from here.

she concluded her presentation with thanks to the participation. ◆

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mr rahman thanked the chief election commissioner dr Zaidi and the two election commissioners mr. rawat and mr. Joti for inviting mauritius to the conference where one learns a lot and takes back very good positive things from india.

He started with a quick slide on mau-ritius and said that it happens to be small country with a surface area of 2,040 sq. kms and a population of 1.265 million. their number of registered electors is just num-

ber 900,000. they also have a small island called rodriguez, an outer island about 350 kms from mauritius with a very small elector-ate of about 28,000. in historical perspec-tive, mauritius have been successively colo-nized first by the dutch, then by the french and finally by in england. mauritius became independent in 1968 and a republic, and joined commonwealth in 1992. since inde-pendence, they have had 11 parliamentary elections resulting in a change of govern-

Mauritius / M.i. abdool rahMan electoral commissioner

electoral commissioner’s office, mauritius


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ment at least seven times. He said that he has conducted four general elections since 1998 and out of these four general elec-tions, they had few changes of government.

He said that mauritius is a small coun-try in the indian ocean. the official languag-es spoken are english and french but bho-jpuri which is a dialect in the state of bihar, india is also spoken mainly in the rural areas and as such their population is multiethnic and they have always been proud of pre-vailing racial harmony on the island. a vast majority of their population is of indian origin with other inhabitants from africa, china and french in descent.

He said that the total voter age pop-ulation stands at less than a million and 978,887 to be precise with 917,311 regis-tered voters. this is a very small population as compared to neighbours.

the information and communication devices available are radio and television, mobile phones, computers besides other devices on the internet. since 1976, they have had free education in mauritius from the pre primary level to the tertiary level. so, that explains the liter-acy rate of over 90%. He ict literacy is about 83% and penetration to telephone and radio is about 92%.

He said that since independence they have had 11 elec-tions resulting in seven changes in government. and it is also important

to highlight that none of these election re-sults have been contested in the supreme court in mauritius. all the results have been accepted by all stakeholders. once the writs of elections are issued by the president of the republic, the emb engages in a series of interactions with political parties and can-didates at each and every step of the elec-tion. they engage in do ‘an open door policy’ calling all the political parties. they have 71 registered political parties in mauritius and few party alliances. for an electorate of just under one million, they have 71 registered political parties. the largest constituency is about 62,000 electors and the smallest con-stituency is 21,000.

He presented the main features of their election calendar and at each and ev-ery process of this election phase, they call the candidates and the political parties in, discuss with them and we communicate to them all their calendar of activities. emb have regular meetings with the political par-ties or their reps. surprisingly, at some point in time, people stop turning up for the meet-ings. they do not even go to see printing of

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the ballot papers, they say that they leave it to the emb, it is a question of trust of people.

He said that they have different sys-tems to vote for different types of elections. for national assembly

elections, they have to vote for 3 candidates per constituency. if they vote for less or for more the vote is not counted as it becomes invalid. for municipal council elections they have to vote for 4 candidates and for village council elections for 9 candidates and for their outer island rodriguez they have to vote for 2 candidates. He said that this is a big confusion for the electors that is why they have to record different video clips to explain to voters “How to vote?” because otherwise their vote will not be counted and it will not be in the interest of democracy at large in the country.

for the last election in 2014, they had to introduce a new a measure of proof of identity. since pre-independence time, peo-ple never had to produce a document for identity proof to casting a vote in mauritius. it was like annual taxing system in england and scotland where somebody would come in, if his name appeared in the register of elec-tors he was allowed to vote. but in 2014, they decided to bring in the production of a documentary proof to be able to vote. and in fact it was in line with the indian model. they had a new id card and old id card, bus pass, driving license, passport etc. they carried out a very aggressive campaign, 85.5% of people produced a new id card before they could vote. and the old id cards was 10%, bus pass 2%, driving license just under 1%

and only 0.26% of electors came in without a document but even then they were allowed to vote. because on checking the registers their names were located, they were asked to sign on their names. since the ecm of-ficials agreed that they are on the register, it was confirmed and were allowed to vote.

the percentage of voter turnout since the last four elections was high even without much voter education. However, you will see it has been decreasing steadily since the year 2000. the youth seem to be disconnected the political activities and political elite, they did not want to vote and they are not inter-ested in the political process at all. they had the lowest turnout in our history in 2014, only 74.1% despite a very aggressive campaign. percentage of invalid votes was 1% in 2000 and 1.13% in 2014. they tried to find out for what reason this happened because they had given due publicity on television and ra-dio and we were informed people that they have no nota on the ballot paper. voters wanted to express their dissatisfaction and that is why they spoiled the ballot paper and as such 1.13% of ballot papers were invalid in mauritius.

He concluded that there are many fac-tors that can influence voter turnout. tech-nology which is very good in itself will not change human behaviour but it is believed that it is a powerful tool to facilitate electoral participation.

He closed the presentation with thanks to the participation. ◆


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He started with expressing his deepest ap-preciation to dr nasim Zaidi, chief election commissioner and undp for inviting him to participate in this important event.

He said that in thailand they have been mobilized by mechanism of quality citizen so called sub district democracy development centre (sddc). the centre is attributed for preceding an activity by strong citizen in or-der to promote and develop democracy in all villages and sub district. His presentation

focused on the following four issues : thai political situation in 84 years of thai de-mocracy; the major content of curriculum development for democracy; forming the sub-district democracy development cen-ter and roles of the sub-district democracy development center and the civic network in 2016 referendum on the draft constitution. the election commission of thailand ect has important role as an independent insti-tution in democracy sustenance in thailand.

thailand / Mr. suPaChai soMCharoen cHairman, election commission of tHailand

election commission of tHailand

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He said that the last 84 years of thai democracy reflect different groups of people where each group thinks they are abiding democracy but the opponent are not biding by democratic norms. He said that they have the elections as per the blueprint but during last 20 years, electoral fraud and irregularity particularly vote buying was widespread. this meant non inclusion of the eligible voters in elector-al process. the entire dem-ocratic process had got into a vicious cycle. He said that the election commission of thailand has important role to play by creating the curricu-lum, equipping the facilitators and empowering the citizens for democratic process. the ect has the duty to control and hold any election to be proceeded in an honest free and fair manner and it could punish any cor-rupt candidates and politician.

the first priority that the current ect is to strengthen citizens who are eligible voters by creating the provision in democracy way; create the curriculum and providing the par-ticipatory facility by equipping the facilitators who are the ect officers and equip citizens through multiplier effect in order to expand knowledge. the consistency on democracy way curriculum means participatory learning technique or pl that includes sharing ex-perience; discussion, applying knowledge and exchanging new experience for future discussion among the participant leading to conceptual development. the technique em-

phasized the participation at a learning centre and promoted the participant in every activity in order to get new knowledge, increase the skill and change their attitude and behaviour. there are four subjects in this curriculum which include life and politics, democracy

tree, good citizens on democratic way and the sddc.

‘life and politics’ aim to train people, taught to pay more attention and participation in politics. the facilitator will provide vocabu-lary guide to participate in order to analyze how to understand political constitution of country is. they also show violence or prob-lems relating to economy, society, education and corruption. million of participants are from various target group for instance stu-dent, soldier, government official, police of-ficer, muslims living in southern border area, unique group in the northern part and gypsy in the southern part they are on enthusiastic to express their opinion independently. the effect that thailand still has problem and the more severe one is corruption. Hence, first


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everyone had to tackle this prob-lem together.

the next step as the people realize and are willing to partici-pate in political activity is that they should know principle and process of democratic political participa-tion.

the curriculum used free learning tool so called democracy tree, called so as it is an easy way to learn democracy by comparing the components the tree with sig-nificant components of democracy. starting with fruit it is compared to benefit expectation from democra-cy, soil is compared to the demo-cratic value and ideology which they have applied to cultivate youth and people. roots can uphold tree and compare to democratic princi-ple which would be stable. trunk is compared to the fundamental institution and organization in the country. Having their own duty to promote and develop democra-cy. the last component is branch; branches are compared to system, mechanism and proceed monitor-ing operating of the institution and organization for transparency, effi-ciency and without corruption.

all answers come from brainstorming of participants. it is easy to learn about principles and processes of democracy including honest, transparent and fair elec-tions by using a tree as a learning

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media. the facilitator shall divide the partici-pant in five to six group and ten to twelve per-sons per group. the facilitator will ask partic-ipant five easy questions, having asked each question the participants get a couple of min-utes for brainstorming and writing the answer on sticky note with different colour. they have also to clarify reason of the answers before attaching sticky note on different part of the democracy tree. every answer comes from

opinion of the participant by using tree at a learning me-dia they will proceed till they find answers for all five part of democracy tree. it is easy to learn about principles and processes of democracy in-cluding honest, transparent and fair elections by using a tree as a learning media.

He said that once peo-ple know about democracy principle and process includ-ing after inspection mecha-

nism of democracy tree, the next important subject is provision on democracy way aim-ing to provide knowledge and comprehen-sion concerning different definition between citizen and people. citizen means people who have public consciousness and are accountable to the society, have corporate social responsibility, have consideration for public interest more than personal interest, do not surrender and protect and preserve

individual rights and of others. then participants of training chain learn about the three principles of democratic cit-izenship as follows: first re-spect human dignity, second respect for liberty, rights, and social rules and third taking responsibility for themselves, others to society and to coun-try.

the most outstanding feature of this subject is to facilitate the participants to


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determine that on different charac-teristic participants will define the behavior of democratic citizenship and the ways to equip citizens on their own and present way how to be in a citizenship. after the partic-ipants have consciousness of cit-izenship and become enthusiastic to participate in politics the ‘sub district democracy development centre’ ‘sddc’ plays its next role. main components of duty of the centre are as follows: to be the center for democratic

development in the sub district area

to educate people and youth about democratic and elector-al knowledge.

to participate in the process of election.

to equip strong and quality people.

to promote democratic activi-ties.

prior to serving as a mem-ber of sddc, everyone must pass the training session on democracy way curriculum. they will also be equipped with material and refer-ences to transmit knowledge to different people group in order to create civic network to support operation of sddc. these simple ways of learning process are differ-ent from the formal education done by state agency.

the objectives are to be-

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come a good citizen with democracy con-sciousness and values; strengthening democracy and supporting villages/com-munities and that and that the people have a democratic way of life as also that an honest election brings about a quality representation for democratic governance.

He said that the sddc’s roles in 2016 referendum are envisaged as follows: to build up and extend citizen network. to disseminate the media in order to

publicize the referendum.

to conduct a campaign for quality voting. to increase the number of eligible voters to diminish invalid ballot papers

they don’t need budget as knowledge material value appre-ciation and certificate of being fa-cilitator. they require budget for upcoming general election to be held in 2017 under the new con-stitution, the constitution for to re-duce corruption. the sddc and civic network can also perform their duty as facilitator for training the polling station committee in all district area. some can themselves up at polling station committee. moreover, they could be volunteer for supporting operation of the ect in effectively in the forthcom-ing election. at the future election in thailand must be quality election mobilized by effort of quality citizen.

He closed his participation with thanks to the participation. ◆


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on behalf of the electoral commission of uganda and on behalf of the secretary to the electoral commission who is here present and on her own behalf, she conveyed thanks to the chief electoral commissioner dr. na-sim Zaidi, the election commissioners for inviting ecu to this conference and for ear marking voter education as a major pillar in the electoral process.

she said that in her presentation she would focus on voter education for informed

and ethical voting in ugandain general elec-tions 2016. by way of brief introduction, she said that the electoral commission of ugan-da is established under article 60 of the con-stitution of the republic of uganda and its functions are stipulated under article 61 of the constitution. the electoral commission has the power to accredit any other non par-tisans, individuals, groups, institutions to car-ry out voter education on its behalf. thus, the commission does not carry out the mandate

uganda / Mrs. Peninah sekabeMbe principle election officer

election commission of uGanda

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for voter education alone, but has a mandate also to accredit other institutions as well for the purpose. the legal basis for voter edu-cation in uganda is also provided in the law. the constitution of the republic of uganda (1995) gives power to the people to decide on whoshall govern them and howthey shall be governed. those are principles they use in conducting voter education. further, ecu is mandated by the constitution to formu-late and implement voter education pro-grams,that is how a legal mandate has been given in terms of voter education.

she said various terms have been well defined. voter education is a term for build-ing awareness for effective participation of all stakeholders in an electoral process; in-

formed voting is deliberate effort by embs to inform voters of electoral activities and enable them to make an informed choice on voting day. in terms of ethical voting, this was a new term and they do not usually use it. in uganda, in terms of election terminolo-gies they include and define in their terms as a part of free and fair elections that deliver acceptable results/outcomes. quality elec-toral participation means participating in all election activities according to the law. and stakeholders in an election are individuals, in-stitution groups and organizations that have a role to play in an electoral process.

referring to understanding of ethical voting she said that since it was a new con-cept, a new term they had to come up with simple formula on understanding this con-cept and will present three options on this. the first one is, when you have informed vot-ers and you add ethical voting, what do you get, you get acceptable results/outcomes as the first formula. then second is if they have informed voters and they have ethical voting, you can get quality participation. the third, when you add that is quality participation plus acceptable outcomes then you get free and fair elections. that was a simple way of understanding the ethical voting in their context.

she said that theoretical views on eth-ical voting have been expressed by authors like Jason brennan. as per his theory,ethical voting has three important aspects: each cit-izen has a civic duty to vote, any good faith vote is morally acceptable. When you go further reading his book,he explains what is morally acceptable and what is good faith.

voter education: building awareness for effective participation of all stake-holders in an electoral process.informed voting: deliberate effort by emb’sto inform voters of electoral activities to enable them to make an informed choice on voting day.ethical voting: free and fair elec-tions that deliver acceptable results/outcomes.Quality electoral Participation: participating in all election activities according to the law and guidelines.stakeholders in an election: all individuals, institutions, Groups andorganization that have a role to play in electoral process.


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and the third is, it is wrong to buy or sell one’s vote. that is why she has picked under that theory on ethical voting, on voting ethics.

as for electoral system in uganda, she said that they prac-tice first past thepost electoral system for presidential election. this means for anyone to be de-clared a winner, he has to obtain 50 plus 1%. However, in case of members of parliament they follow the system of simple majority. the principle of equal weight for every vote is followed. levelling the play-ing field for all parties in an election is also ensured especially the can-didates of the ruling party are not allowed to take any advantage so that all have the equal opportuni-ties and participate in the election. they have guidelines against com-mercialization of elections which is being taken advantage of by the different political playersand it is a big challenge to the country. vot-ing being voluntary, it’s not manda-tory, much as the constitution gives the right all the citizens to vote but it does not make it mandatory so it is optional.

While discussing the criteria for voter education she said that inconducting voter education,cer-tain basic criteria are followed. the criteria include:target Group, background information for that particular group, medium/ channel

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of communication, methods of delivery, con-tent, language, timing of information and the source of information.

she said that each of the above criteria has to be examined carefully in its applica-tion. the target group and the background information for a particular group, the medium and channel of communication and the meth-ods of delivery are important. depending on

the group they are targeting for the voter education,they have to take into consider-ation first of all in terms of background information, what are their interests, what would work for them and how you are going to deliver the voter educa-tion? the medium/channel of communication should look at how do you get the message to the target group. methods of delivery, how you are going to con-duct the voter education, and what methods will you use to reach that particular group. the content in terms of the messages you will be passing on, how much con-tent are you going to give and for which particular cat-egory? the language, this is a big challenge in their country because they have several tribes cut across the country and in terms of voter education most, if not

all of the materials have got to be translated into local dialects which has also a financial implication. so, the language matters so that whoever you are targeting this material to, they do understand it well.

the timing of the information for target groups is quite important so as to get them to understand the messages. Here they use an example like timing of information; may-


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be they are targeting the senior citizens for that matter. What time will you pass on the information to reach the grass roots is quite important. in uganda, they use mainly radio for passing on information. but even then, the time when they shall pass on that message on radio is quite important because of the target group concerned. the source of infor-mation in terms of authenticity and it applies to the people they accredit to conduct voter education. all the information is from the electoral commission. therefore, approval of the electoral commission will be required.

she said that vot-er education campaigns included impressive and engaging voter education launches, road shows and radio talks etc with very effective messages. she shared some of the slides on voter education launch-es showing the ways how they conduct voter edu-cation. they do launches of voter education in the regions and in the districts and this is done by inviting several stakeholders when they are going through voter education drive and it’s highly publicized such that it sets off the drive for the voter education in that particular area. conduct of

voter education by road shows to target dif-ferent categories of voters under this method includes use of transport vehicles including scooter, motor cycles etc. and there is the market. all that they target is different seg-ments of voters in this kind of method. and it was done all the way to down the sub county level by different service providers who are contracted to do the road shows.

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posters shown speak for themselves. many of their staff is engaged in these plus they invite several of the stakeholders such political party representatives, they opinion leaders, district leaders, the local leaders are all involved in this launch.

they used an election slogan ‘your vote your power your country’ conveying voting procedure and modalities. sms messages

on allocation of polling sta-tions, a poster on observ-ing voting procedures and anotherposter for counting of votes. conduct of voter education using radio talks, use of lot of the electronic media especially radio in the conduct of voter education as radio is widespread in uganda down to their local level, community radios and in each home at least one will find that most homes have radio, they can listen to radio. she said that voter education programs if put it on radio, one can be sure that it would go down to the grass root. different pack-aging was done on the ra-dio but this year talk shows were mainly conducted by own officers at different levels and they have call in talk shows with immediate feedback depending on the questions. ‘your vote your power your country’ this is

one of the illustrations they use in most of their materials to call on the voters to go and exercise their vote. ‘using your phone to lo-cate your polling station’ that was one of the methods also which was used the sms plat-forms.

she explained that they faced several challenges in their campaigns on voter ed-ucation. challenges encountered may be


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voter apathy and fatigue low levels of literacy among

the voters multi tribal society poverty among voters commercialization of politics embs limited mandate to con-

duct only voter education inadequate funding

continuous changes in the laws.

in conclusion she said that there has always been lack of voter education. it was necessary to carry out effective voter education pro-grammes with focus on giv-ing quality education to all the voters at the right time, to have aninformed electorate, in order toachieve free and fair (ethical) electoralparticipation.

she closed her presen-tation with thanks to the par-ticipation. ◆

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mr. Karamjit singh, thanked dr Zaidi, the chief election commissioner of india and his team for organizing this important confer-ence on voter education in collaboration with the undp and inviting him for participation.

mr singh, to start with, recounted his experience in citizenship education and voter education as a commissioner, uK electoral commission. as a founding commissioner of the electoral commission, he had rich ex-perience on the subject originating from the

responsibility for promoting voter education including citizenship education. He said that he also worked as the trustee of the citizen-ship foundation, an nGo which campaigned for inclusion of citizenship studies in national education curriculum. currently he is trustee malaysian commonwealth studies centre which has been organizing conferences of commonwealth election commissioners. these conferences have considered lessons and experiences of different voter education

united kingdoM / Mr. karaMJit singh trustee, malaysian commonWealtH studies centre

malaysian commonWealtH studies centre


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programmes in their jurisdictions from throughout the common-wealth. With this background, he was happy to share his experience of voter education in uK especially when he was directly in charge of the matter.

sharing his experience of that time, he said that the united Kingdom electoral commission (ec) focused on raising aware-ness amongst young people as part of its statutory responsibility at that time for voter education. He emphasized that the citizenship education was very important for a democratic society and electoral participation. He said that in uK this fact had been duly recognized by the Government. citizenship development supports the vot-er education to lead into a healthy electoral participation. He shared the initiatives of the electoral commission of the united King-dom in voter education for timely registration and participation in voting process by the electors.

in his presentation he explained how the electoral commission of the uK mobilised its campaign for maximisation of registration by prompting the early submission of the registration forms by the citi-zens followed by educating citizens through good communicative easy readings. these readings essen-tially covered the following topics covered for voter registration and process of voting:

secure your vote. or lose it How do i start? What is a poll card? Where do i vote? What is a ballot paper? How do i vote? What do i do next? can i vote by post? What happens after i have voted?

He said that the public awareness

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campaigns targeted at young people as a demographic group provided information about voter registration but also adopted a campaigning approach emphasising how specific social issues such as poverty , health, education and employment required active citizenship through the voting pro-cess. He also elaborated the role played by nGos, political parties, media in voter ed-ucation and observed that the success of any voter education programme has to be essentially assessed in terms of outcome as

well as change in behaviour.He said that the onus for

imparting education and creating awareness for the young and future voter lies on the election manage-ment bodies. He said embs alone are capable enough for this task? secondly, the planning of inter-ventions and also making sure that

they yield the desired effect on the target groups. lastly, it has to be made sure that the approach of the embs should always be forward looking and responsive to the changing societal environment. this can be achieved only through enhancing the institu-tional capabilities of embs.

He said that the interactions at this new delhi conference will go a long way in strengthening the voter education and in turn larger voter participation at elections.

He closed his session with thanks to the participation. ◆


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dr ornit shani made a presentation on ‘em-bedding electoral democracy’ in an illiterate society: the case of india’s first elections and its relevance to current times’. in her presen-tation she mentioned that elections on the basis of universal franchise entailed albeit largely unwittingly but the efforts which re-sulted in mentoring both administrators and the citizenry into the values and principles of electoral democracy and in motivating the fu-ture electorate to participate in elections.

the design and management of that stupendous administrative task was under-taken already from september 1947 midst of partition by the secretariat of the constit-uent assembly, a small and newly formed bureaucratic body of the state in the making. only in march 1950, it was handed over to the first chief election commissioner of in-dia. in 1947, in the midst of partition and ahead of the enactment of the constitution which came into force only in January 1950,

israel / dr ornit shani deprtment of asian studies, university of Haifa

university of Haifa

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the secretariat worked without a manual or a tool kit. she explained that this secretariat that worked as the election management body at the time, dealt with the registra-tion of voters and particularly with the many challenges that arose in that process cultivated the en-gagement and trust of the future electorate that was a necessary precondition for imbuing the peo-ple’s imagination with the idea and practice of electoral democracy.

she said her short presenta-tion would focus on the challenge of registering partition refugees on the electoral roll. World events be-ing what they are, the question of how to enrol millions of refugees and displaced persons bought relevance to challenges that some election management bodies face even in our time including the question of internally displaced people and it was referred to by mr. vasu mohan, ifes earlier in his presentation.

she said that soon after the secretariat and the Government issued detailed instruction for the preparation of the roll and the pro-vincial governments began issuing their instructions to local adminis-trators, letters began arriving at the secretariat asking whether and how refugees should be enrolled. indeed refugees’ citizenship and residential status are the two key


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qualifying criteria for registration as voters were unclear and soon became a contest-ed matter. according to the prescribed res-idency qualification a voter should have had a place of residence in the electoral unit for a period of no less than 180 days on 31st march, 1948. but a large number of the ref-ugees migrated after 30th september, 1947 which was the deadline. letters of complaint from a wide range of citizen organizations also began arriving at the secretariat raising questions and concerns over the refugee’s registration. the secretariat acknowledged and she quoted that, ‘the residential qualifi-

cation of 180 days will cause hardship to ref-ugees for reason beyond their control. some concession will have to be made for the ref-ugees otherwise a large number of persons will be left out.’ seeking an all india solution to the question of the refugee’s registration members of the secretariat initially explored international precedence. they looked for ex-ample at how european countries dealt with the refugee problem since the beginning of the first World War in the wake of the par-titioning of the ottoman empire. they con-cluded however, she quoted that, ‘even in the countries where automatic naturalization of

the refugees took place it could not be ascer-tained whether the residential qualifications for election purpose was also relaxed. there is no book or document available which deals with these minute questions’. the under sec-retary pointed out that the refugees are al-ways on the move and therefore no residen-tial qualification can be prescribed for them if they are to be given the right to vote in the next election. the secretariat ultimately de-cided to register all refugees on the electoral roll at this stage on mere declaration by them of their intention to reside permanently in the town or village concerned irrespective of the

actual period of residence. the secretariat sent the new direc-

tives on the enrolment of refugees to all the provinces and the states then replied to all queries from citizen organizations and tell-ing them all about the solution they found and they also issued a detailed explanato-ry press note. nonetheless problems arose when the provincial governments issued to their staff instructions for registration of refu-gees based on their own interpretation of the secretariat’s instructions. as an example, the government of assam set a court fee stamp to be affixed on the declarations to be filled

The secretariat ultimately decided to register all refugees on the electoral roll at this stage on mere declaration by them of their intention to reside permanently in the town or village concerned irrespective of the actual period of residence.

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by the refugees on the roll even though no fee was stipulated to the order to relax the refugee’s registration. it also said that such declarations should be made in writing be-fore the 30th of september, 1948.

in the face of that numerous citizens’ organizations and ordinary people submit-ted complaints to the secretariat. one or-ganization wrote as she quoted that, ‘the government of assam instruction will have the inevitable effect of disenfranchising the majority of the refugees. specifically they demanded first the cancellation of the court fee charge claiming that it was an econom-ic blow for the refugees. second they asked that a male head of a household be allowed to file declarations on behalf of his wife and other women in the family explaining that a larger number of women were observing rigid rules of seclusion and they also asked to extend the date for the submission of the declaration. some organizations report-ed in detail about misconduct of specific local officials naming them. so, for ex-ample, one organization complained and told the deputy commissioner’s directive specified, the declarations were to be accepted on 4th september, 1948 until 3pm. the person who was authorized to receive the declaration stopped working at 1:15pm. and they wrote that a few hundred refugees including about 100 ladies were waiting to file declaration in the scorching sun for hours.

in some cases local authorities raised difficulties and refused to register refugees by devising ad hoc sometimes capricious procedures and definitions

of a refugee. for example, according to one complaint, one sub deputy collector refused to receive the declarations from the refugees because in his view, ‘those who live under a shed cannot be called refugees’ and that, ‘ref-ugees were only those who had lived under the trees, on the road or on station platforms’. confronted with these disparate exclusionary practices in the registration of the refugees on the ground, the secretariat became the principle guarantor of inclusion on the elec-toral roll. they acknowledged the receipt of all letters, responded often in great details to explain the procedures and actions that were taken. before replying they were discussing each and every letter. they replied within, at the most, two weeks to every letter but some-times even earlier. they redressed problems that arose with local governments for ex-


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ample, they summoned for discussions the land reforms commissioner of assam after complaints about his practices. they called him for delhi and they forced him to cancel the court fee that he imposed, to extend, he agreed also to extend the date for declaration as well as to allow in the case of women for their husbands to make the declaration.

the secretariat also made the pub-lic aware of their activities. they published a second comprehensive press note which told in detail all the problems that arose with faulty procedures and how these were re-dressed. Henceforth the secretariat regular-ly asked provincial authorities to respond to written enquiries they received from citizen organization. they forwarded these letters to local authorities with a proposed draft reply and asked to be kept informed with a copy. in doing so the secretariat delegated authority to provincial officials and strengthened their competence. it also created a mechanism for overseeing their activities while endeavouring to achieve as much uniformity in the imple-mentation of the procedures for the prepara-tion of the roll as possible. indeed provincial governments often used the secretariat’s proposed draft reply in their response letters.

the secretariat’s responsiveness to people’s letters fostered the sense of personal prox-imity and of being taken into account. this in turn enabled people to express growing and passionate interest in the right to vote.

in the modus operandi while dealing with one of the first challenges for the prepa-ration of the roll that is the registration of par-tition refugees as voters, the secretariat can be said to have tutored bureaucrats and the public in the institutional and procedural prin-ciples of an electoral democracy. altogether the secretariat’s way of tackling the question of refugees’ registration contributed to de-veloping the form of democracy particularly customs of accountability in india’s institution of electoral democracy at its inception. it was however, in dealing with the public that the secretariat fostered what dr s. radhakrish-nan, the philosopher and india’s second president referred to and she quoted, ‘elec-toral democracy is habit of mind, its spirit, its sensitive adjustment to the infinitely varied demands of other person’. this was not sim-ply a result of the secretariat’s impressive re-sponsiveness to citizens; it was rather related to the terms and style of engagement which the secretariat, as the election management

the principles and practice that the secretariat developed in instilling adminis-trating the first steps of making universal franchise particularly the way it tack-led the question of refugee’s registration fostered among people a sense of commitment to the normative vision that universal franchise entailed. People began to show dedication and a will to protect it. the name in the voter’s list was not just a procedural side that marked their right. they began identifying with it and conveyed a sense that it belonged to them; a place on the roll was their titled deed for democracy.

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body at the time, developed. for a start, they took seriously peoples’ grievances, queries and suggestions. some of their decisions in redressing problems reflected proposals

some organizations put forward. moreover the secretariat was authentic and transpar-ent in their correspondence repeating some-times word for word their internal discussion notes or the content of latest descent to pro-

vincial authorities. she said that the internal official notes,

the letters to provincial governments and the letters – the reply letters to the public were

entirely consistent and based on identical wording.

What could be inferred from the case of the prepa-ration of india’s first election for voter’s education? first, it is a refrain of election man-agement bodies that an error free electoral roll prepared and maintained and updat-ed as humanly possible is a prerequisite for any election to be free and fair. in india, the secretariat proved itself to be, to the prospective voters and administrators time and again, to be trustworthy with the way it handled occasion-al attempts to disenfranchise whole groups of people from the roll. this was the basic precondition for the ability a little ahead of the elections to educate voters into the tech-nicalities of the actual vot-ing and for designing voter’s mechanism for an electorate. and that was done through mock elections or different di-

visions of india produced a film that explained in detail all steps from the morning of the day of voting until voting and it was screened all over india.

thus, first breeding trust among the


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electorate and administrators was a precon-dition for successful voter education. sec-ond, the successful tutoring into electoral literacy entailed a two-way learning process. the secretariat learned from voters, citizens and as well as local level ad-ministrators at least as much as the voters and administrators learned from them. thus the ped-agogy was dialogical in nature. third, imparting electoral literacy was not just a question of edu-cating the voters but also included the tutoring of bureaucrats at all levels. and finally voter educa-tion is about much more than a mere technicalities of voting. it is also about the value and purpose of democracy. this point was clearly demonstrated by the solution the sec-retariat found for the ex-ceptional circumstances of the refugees. if a way of relaxing the residential qualification of 180 days was not found, millions of people would have been disenfranchised. in this case the value of the fran-chise took precedence over the application of 180 days residential rule.

in making their judgment call the secretariat imbued the value and purpose that underlay the right to vote among administrators at all level and the voters. the true demonstration

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of the spirit of democracy it exhibited was in-dispensible for the democratic imagination to resonate in the minds of all indians.

she concluded her presentation with thanks to the participation.

thanking dr shani, the chairperson for the session, ms notemba tjipueja said that dr shani has done extensive research in this area and her works are available for those who are interested to hear further on

the work that she has done. With this she in-vited the former chief election commission-er of india, mr. H. s. brahma to address the participation. ◆


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starting with a warm welcome to the par-ticipating dignitaries and congratulations to the election commission of india and undp, he said that it was a matter of real pride that emb’s from 27 countries were participating in this conference which represent almost 40%of the world population. He said that he is very happy to note that the issue of the ethical voting is under deliberation at the conference.

He said that the ethical issue has been

one of the issues which is being dealt very seriously by most of the countries in differ-ent areas, particularly in industries, business management, multinational activities and also governance. He said that whenever we dis-cuss ethics, it refers to immediately the moral values of a man. further, one of the most se-rious issues that confronts all of us, poses a major problem now and then before all of us is good governance.

the question is how do you get good

india /Mr. h. s. brahMa former cHief election commissioner, india


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governance? to get good governance in any country especially in the context of asian countries, african countries and even some of the australia pacific countries would mean nothing else but how a government deliv-ers services to the community, the country’s citizens. experience shows that this can be achieved through elections. Whenever peo-ple elect good leaders and good represen-tatives, the delivery of service is better. He cited the example of schemes such as rice @ rupees 2 per kilo or ‘deepam’ subsidized lpG connection scheme in andhra pradesh as the schemes reflective of good gover-

nance. this was possible because the voters of the state elected a good team.

He said that any discussion about the ethical voting indirectly means that you are going to elect a good candidate, good nom-inee, good leaders who can in turn serve the electors better.

He said that when we talk about ethical voting firstly we link it with the moral principle that we should be behaving in ethical man-ner. the way we vote, the way we perform our responsibility should be ethical. right to vote is an integral part of a democracy. every democratic country provides support and facility for voting. in some countries vot-ing is compulsory, in others like in india it is not compulsory though everyone is encour-

aged to vote. but universally every citizen of a country unless he or she is disqualified, he is allowed to vote. and by voting if he or he elects a good candidate, the state will be run properly. there will be stability, there will be progress, there will be movement forward, there will be employment opportunities etc. contrarily, if we elect, by mistake, a wrong person then one can imagine the adverse im-pact on the state.

so, therefore ethical voting is a serious issue in our political system, in the election system, though it is coming very late com-pared to the industries, multinational compa-

nies, universities, management schools and for that matter in all spheres of governance. if the voters elect their public representatives through ethical voting leading to a majority as per the mandate of ethical voting, the partic-ular candidate or party will come again and again. but if they do not deliver the goods and services as promised in their mandate, the voters have a right to remove them in the next election. this is more important in the asian context.

He said, after hearing the experiences from africa and of course even from among asian countries including india, we have common problems of average levels of lit-eracy, high poverty and a background of colonialism and emerged as new democra-

Any discussion about the ethical voting indirectly means that you are going to elect a good candidate, good nominee, good leaders who can in turn serve the electors better.


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cies. ethical voting is very important for us to address our problems. ours voters have to exercise their role clearly, seriously and with responsibility. this can be achieved through high grade voter education.

He said that another issue that has been brought up by some participants during the conference is the issue of the commercialization of politics and elections. He felt that commercialization of election is becoming one of the serious threats to de-mocracy today. High expenditure levels by the candidates in elections have become a matter of concern. more you elect, the more you spend, the more prohibitive will come for election campaign. so, an ordinary candidate will not be able to contest. a poor but solid candidate will have to go to the multinational company or big businessman, big trader or

big money owner who will finance him to be-come a candidate. once a person becomes a candidate of a multinational company or become a nominee of a money bag fellow or huge corporate etc. instead of doing some-thing for the community or the society, such a representative will be doing something for that company or the multinational company. it leads to the crony capitalism.

He said that we stand to learn from interactions in this conference, from the speeches of various distinguished panel-ist and the other speakers, and this is what strengthens the democracy. He closed his presentation with thanking the participation.

the chairperson miss notemba tjipueja thanked mr brahma and then invited mr umesh sinha, deputy election commis-sioner, eci to make his presentation. ◆

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mr sinha expressed his greetings to the par-ticipating dignitaries and said that ethical voting was vital to an electoral process that an election with a deficit of ethical compo-nent is like a vehicle moving not in the right direction. ethical voting, the third dimension of the election management is a very, very important dimension. the interactions since yesterday have focused on, the informed and inclusive election that means bringing every-body on board for registration and participa-

tion; informed participation that means good knowledge about the electoral process, about the time and place of election and all the information one requires; and the most important aspect that is ethical voting.

ethical is the third dimension. if an electoral process is devoid of ethical com-ponent, it would mean bringing up a wrong candidate and an influenced election. Hence, there is a need for appreciating the importance of the ethical voting. it would be

india / Mr uMesh sinha deputy election commissioner, eci



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relevant to highlight that with an influenced elec-tion or an induced elec-tion is something like a vi-cious cycle. He explained this influence of unethical practice and the conse-quent vicious cycle and the basic issues relevant to the dimension:

• Buying, selling, or trading votes is inherently wrong.

• Don’t be induced into voting for money.

• Don’t be induced into voting on caste and religious lines.

• Vote for right can-didate.

• Vote without fear.• Giving as well as

taking bribe for voting is an electoral offence and punishable under law with one year impris-onment.

a candidate or a political party who starts giving some kind of gratification in the form of gifts, money, liquor, fees whatever, once it is given to the voter, next time the demand is more leading to a vicious cycle. the question is how to make it into a virtuous cycle?

He said the efforts of the emb’s aim at providing voter education to change this vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle. How we can do it? He presented the concept and

approach for this. He said once we start all our initiatives

and efforts by educating the voter, also edu-cating the stakeholders, political parties, we are going to break this vicious cycle. any-thing which is inducement, anything which is for the inducement must be rejected out rightly. He said it is not easy to do that. it is something like truth which you normally don’t like to follow but you have to be very hard to follow. so, in the same way ethical voting requires stick and carrot policy. it requires a very strict regime by taking necessary puni-tive preventive action. at the same time you require a carrot. a very good educational in-

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put in all pervasive way as we have already discussed here, in the formal or informal system of education, needs to be essentially developed from the school onwards.

the ethical component cannot come unless you build it in your child ab initio, then the ethical component can come. it has to be started from very beginning of life. He said that home and school are probably the two major institutions which contribute in the building of a person’s mind and personality. so, when we are talking about this, it is not only the material component, it is also a mor-al component which is very important. so,

when we are talking of ethical, we are giving a message to the voter that your vote is not only for yourself. your vote is for the future of your children, it is for your future. and that is how we are building up the entire campaign; our entire preparation for the voter education is based on this. rest of it are the illustra-tions, different countries, different embs are different in their own ways but this is the ba-sic, this is the foundation block which every country, every emb has to build. unless this is built, all will remain a story and things will go on as they are.

He said that that all the embs are in a ‘melting pot’. We cannot say that for the older de-mocracy, the concern of ethical voting is not there. it is equally a concern, though for a younger de-mocracy it will be more of a challenge, but the challenge exists in many developed countries as well, may be in a very so-phisticated and a subtle way. in the other forms it may be very crude way but this is something which exists everywhere. in indian perspective we have the entire punitive and preventive arrange-ment. We have a unique model code of conduct which guides the be-haviour and the conduct of the political parties


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during the election, legal provisions under the in-dian penal code, rep-resentation of the peo-ple act; model code of conduct and above all voter education through sveep. even during the pre-election, we have a comprehensive arrange-ment but still we are building it up. the initia-tives include robust cam-paigns with focus areas such as: create aware-ness among the voters by educating them to cast their votes without any inducement; spread-ing awareness messages such as ’vote with con-sciousness’ ‘vote without note’ and ‘no vote for note’ etc. He discussed further components of the campaign through lot of illustrations.We are still developing and we hope that we will strengthen. india has a very large framework; i think larg-er the democracy, larger the constituencies, larger would be the issues and problems and the com-plexities over there.

He said that the chief electoral officer (ceo) of tamil nadu, a state in india, made a

very comprehensive plan in tamil nadu with the approval of the eci, for a new method to inculcate education of ethical voting. We first of all started with the national and state

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icons that they will promote this by their own messages. the famous celebrities, cricket-ers, and other personalities were involved in different subtle ways, by way of cartoons, by

way of other hoardings and several other means to promote ethical voting.

He drew attention to some very special and a unique innovation in the world, by starting a pledge by the candi-dates. the candidates came by themselves and suggested that they will take the pledge. they would give in writ-ing, they would take the pledge. the moment they take the pledge at the time of nomination itself, the media joins and takes an interview, gives all in-dia coverage. the pledge is a moral pledge that he will not influence, induce any voter nor will he en-courage such influence. He said that this is a good example which can be adopted by everyone among the stakeholders. there is another pledge of ethical voting by the voters, “i, citizen of india having faith in democra-cy hereby pledge to vote ethically upholding the democratic tradition of

my country and the dignity of the free fair and peaceful election. i promise to vote in this election honestly, fearlessly, without taking


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money and without being influenced by any undue inducement’.

this pledge had definite, a very good ef-fect and all kinds of so-cial media technology was used to do that. by way of felicitation, he in-vited mr rajesh lakho-ni, ceo tamil nadu as he had done hard work to develop this and de-served appreciation. He concluded his presen-tation with thanks to the participation. ◆

Closing Session Day 2

17:15 - 18:15

New Delhi

OctOber

19-212016

Draft Resolution and Adoption of New Delhi Declaration; Launch of VoICE.NET steered by Mr Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioner


240

reMarks

Ms suMEEta banErJI, undp assistant country director india

WraP uP

Mr uMEsH sInHa, deputy election commissioner, eci

dr nasIM zaIdI, Hon’ble cec, india: draft resolution on ‘neW delHi declaration and adoption.

launCh of voiCe.net

Mr uMEsH sInHa dec, eci and Ms PadMa angMO, director, eci

address

dr nasEEM zaIdI, cHief election commissioner

vote of thanks

PadMa angMO

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“Honourable chief election commissioner dr. Zaidi, election commissioners mr. Jyoti and mr. rawat, commissioners from differ-ent countries, deputy election commission-er mr. umesh sinha, conference delegates, experts, practitioners on elections and our partners from election commission of in-dia. at the conclusion of this conference please allow me to congratulate the election commission of india and its leadership for the successful organization of this first ever

conference, a global conference on voter education. it has been an honour and privi-lege for undp to partner with election com-mission of india on sharing best practices in election management amongst countries. in our engagement with the election com-mission of india we have been struck by the extraordinary scale and efficiency of its oper-ations. there has been allusion to, in fact, a brilliant presentation and i must congratulate dr. shani for her presentation on the history

reMarks on behalf of undP Ms suMeeta banerJee, assistant country director undp, india.

united nations development proGramme


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of where this entire story began. and i think if you look to date at the 2014 general election and that is where we had first hand exposure and experience to see on the ground the practices of election commission.

What we saw was in 2014, the elec-tion commission of india managed the larg-est ever election event in the world with an electorate of 835 million people. While the scale of operations in india is huge and it’s completely different from the context in any other country, there is a lot, of course, that many countries across the world can learn. the well designed institutional mechanism of a highly credible and strong election com-mission, its federal structure of the state chief election offices, district election offices, re-

turning officers, presiding officers allows for a management of this election with massive scale and efficiency. another interesting fac-et and fact that we learned was with a mere strength of 350 staff at the election com-mission of india and the manner in which election commission was able to leverage various arms of government ranging from the civil service or the indian administrative ser-vice officials to school teachers, municipal officials, excise and revenue officials around 11 million government and other staffs who are leveraged for the conduct of free fair and efficient elections, was a completely remark-able feat. a well mapped business process

covering all steps from pre-poll to poll day, closing and counting procedures is com-municated clearly to officials involved at all levels to allow for clarity in functioning and roles.

a lot of what you have heard in the last two days as well, the use of ict to reach out to voters, but also the use of ict and tech-nology to make business processes more efficient, transparent and to monitor the elec-tion process in real time. lastly the election commission success in reaching out to un-reached groups through its well executed systematic voter education and electoral participation, (sveep) was also remarkable. sveep has transformed the minds not only of the youth in india but also the corporate

world who have been key partners to the vot-er awareness process. several private sector and corporate partners were part of this en-gagement with the election commission.

to facilitate first hand learning and ex-posure to the election commission of india’s expertise and election management, undp and election commission of india have been offering an election visitors program to vari-ous countries across the world and election management bodies officials across the world during both, the state assembly elec-tions and the national parliamentary elections in the country. this international conference with participation of election bodies from

What we saw was in 2014, the Election Commission of India managed the largest ever election event in the world.

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243more than 25 countries and national and international resource institutions is yet an-other milestone in our south-south collabo-ration efforts. the conference also assumes significance in the context of the globally agreed sustainable development Goals and many of you would have made the connec-tion with goal 16 which is meant to promote peaceful inclusive societies for sustainable development and build inclusive institutions. strengthening the capacity of election man-agement bodies to promote peaceful and inclusive societies and promoting inclusive participation of voters is definitely an import-ant strategy that will contribute to peaceful societies and to this important goal 16 of the sustainable development agenda.

in the last two days participants have emphasized that future of electoral systems lies in promoting voter and civic education amongst the youth and in schools. some countries have included voter awareness and education amongst their formal ed-ucation systems and have promoted the values of democracy through various other integration and mainstreaming in curricular programs. election management bodies have also highlighted that it is imperative to include people with disabilities, margin-alized communities such as women, rural population through legal framework, through constitutional provisions or special targeted programs as well as promoting and provid-ing facilities for such excluded groups. this is very much in line with the principle of the sustainable development goals of leaving no one behind and focusing on the excluded.

participants have also noted that vot-

ing provides a powerful identity for people who in conflict situations and who are in forced migration situations. election man-agement bodies have shared innovative approaches, focused programs connect-ing with electorates such as sveep, work-ing with students, edutainment tools, using ict and social media, preparing ict vision documents, using Gis for tagging, e-postal ballots, reaching out to overseas voters etc. the launch of the Web portal and survey for the overseas indian electors is an ambitious initiative of election commission of india for inclusion of indian citizens living overseas into the electoral process. the adoption of the conference declaration on voter educa-tion for inclusive, informed and ethical partic-ipation also very well signifies and captures the essence and importance of various ap-proaches to enhance voter participation and education through institutional advocacy and outreach programs covering the last mile of citizens in the spirit once again of leaving no one behind and keeping the voter at the cen-tre of democracy.

as undp, this has been an extremely fulfilling experience to see all of you from dif-ferent countries here to share, to learn and to apply these experiences. We hope that this platform has motivated many of you, who are already working tirelessly on promoting de-mocracy and we hope you will be able to take back some of these experiences to make your own election processes more inclusive. With these words on behalf of undp please allow me to thank election commission of india and all of you for your participation in this conference. thank you.” ◆


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mr umesh sinha initiated the interaction and his presentation on wrap up with Greetings to the participants.

He said that he was really over-whelmed and extremely indebted to the dis-tinguished participants who have come from all over the world. they have given their very precious time and so seriously they have deliberated on the subject for the last two days. may be it must have been very toiling for them, overcoming their jet lags yet they

have really worked very hard. He said that his task is little harder because when the “distil-lation process goes on, the perfume comes out with difficulty”. His task was to bring out the “perfume out of the distillation process of two days”. a lot has been said by the embs, a lot has been learned by the participants and all of us are much wiser after the two days deliberations as we have learnt lot of good practices, innovations and we need to definitely share with each other, learn from

Mr. uMesh sinha deputy election commissioner, election commission of india


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245each other. With this, he recounted the sa-lient points of the two days of deliberations as follows.

starting with the inauguration of the conference, he spoke of the exhibits and the exhibition on voter education resources from the participating embs. He referred to the in-tensity of discussions and the presentations, visit of the participating Heads of emb’s and dignitaries to ‘rashtrapati bhawan’ for call-ing on Hon’ble president of india, release of the conference reader etc in the last two days. He presented the glimpses of the pro-ceedings of the last two days in the form of a picture gallery stating that this will be

all available online to all that day onwards. (since made available at http://voicenet.in/icphoto.html). the gallery captures fine de-tails of what is not written in words, but the pictures speak for themselves.

He said the proceedings show that all the participating emb’s have contributed valuable inputs for voter education resources and there was a lot to share with each other and learn from each other. He spoke to cap-ture some of the valuable initiatives of differ-ent countries and mentioned some of them in his presentation. He said that australia has shared very innovative voting education pro-grams including ‘Get voting’, national elec-

tion education centre, professional learning workshops, national indigenous youth parlia-ment, postal ballot, technical workshop for diplomats and the facilitation of voting for the defence personnel and overseas voters comprise good highlights; and one learns a lot from them. from canada, one learns from the initiatives on reversing declin-ing youth votes and how to bring youth on board, how to overcome the administrative barriers through a multi faceted approach, endeavours to directly educate the teachers, student vote program and so on. from Geor-gia, the director, a wonderful trainer, made a very good presentation on inter alia devel-

opment of electoral culture. she has made a lot of efforts for the innovation and initiatives launched there. from sri lanka, despite a new election commission, they have start-ed lot of new programmes in schools and colleges. the us, the participants were very enlightened by the presentation on involv-ing the schools and colleges in voter edu-cation programmes, and the projects and also the way they are involving the special category of voters, especially the military and overseas voters. as for india, they have just showcased the sveep program with spe-cial focus on the targeted intervention and facilitation, the outreach programs for differ-

Proceedings show that all the participating EMBs have contributed valuable inputs for voter education resources and there was a lot to share with each other and learn from each other.


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ent categories, campus ambassadors, con-cept of voter’s place, 360 degree grievance redressal system and last but not the least, a national voters’ day and a national voter ser-vice portal, a very big it initiative to bring all voters on board to provide a one stop shop for their services.

He added that in indonesia initiatives include improved accessibility for people with disability; Kpu was awarded by the government for their commendable effort. afghanistan, initiative taken by department of public outreach at iec for improving the inclusion, gender participation, reduction in rejected votes through outreach in voter education. He briefly recounted the good practices from many other countries such as from namibia, pakistan, tunisia, mexico, iraq, maldives, mauritius and uganda besides in-ternational idea, undp and ifes.

He said that a draft resolution of new delhi declaration had been circulated. feedback has been received from most of the countries and as per this feedback, most of the countries have agreed, and a few have made some comments. their sugges-tions have been included in the proposed draft which has been shared with the par-ticipants. Having presented the highlights of different presentations and the draft resolu-tion for way forward, he called on the chair to take over the further deliberations on the subject. ◆

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dr Zaidi said that last two days have wit-nessed a “distillation process and now the perfume, the real feel, the real outcome is in your hand.” When he said this, he meant the draft of the “new delhi declaration on voter education for inclusive, informed and ethi-

cal voting.” He said that actually it had been circulated earlier to the participants and he expressed happiness that many of the embs have given very good comments on the draft . While many embs have agreed, some com-ments have been received and shared and

adoPtion of ‘neW delhi deClaration on voter eduCation for inClusive, inforMed and ethiCal PartiCiPation’ and launCh of voiCe.netdr nasiM zaidi, Hon’ble cHief election commissioner of india



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the amendments incorporated accordingly. He said that any conference or any delibera-tion should ultimately result in consolidation of the gains. from that point of view, he felt from the interaction of the last two days, that this is going to be the strength of the embs to move forward, to go for improvement of their voter education. referring to the draft declaration, he said that this is actually based on preva-lent practices and as emphasized throughout two days deliberation that voter is the central actor in the entire electoral democracy and as we have also realized that there is a need for not only greater awareness amongst popu-lation but also the need for voter education. and probably voter education would result in improving the participation in elections.

He said that the conference also takes note of the fact and is very appreciative of

the fact that a large number of embs have already undertaken voter education pro-grams under their mandate, under legal framework or without the legal framework. therefore, it was thought that the confer-ence could possibly resolve to give you a broad architecture, a broad framework, a framework of suggestive kind of guidelines

which each emb can follow and utilize this as a document under their mandate and to pursue it in a very systematic and institutional structure. so, with these additional remarks in addition to what mr umesh sinha, dec has said, may be in a democratic way, ask for any other comment which any emb would like to make on this draft which has since been displayed on the screen including the additional comments. With this he called for comments of the participation.

dr. s. y. Quraishi, forMer Chief eleCtion CoMMissioner of india. dr quraishi said that it was a very good doc-ument that almost sums up the consensus with two to three editorial or minor changes. referring to the resolve, the expression ‘au-

gust body’ in the document he suggested that we should drop the word ‘august’ and instead say that ‘this body unanimously’. secondly he said it would be better to use arabic numerals in place of roman numer-als; and the third suggestion he made was that academics could also be considered for inclusion in para xii of the draft.

Voter is the central actor in the entire electoral democracy and as we have also realized that there is a need for not only greater awareness amongst population but also the need for voter education. And probably voter education would result in improving the participation in elections.

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249dr nasiM zaidi dr Zaidi looked for any other comment on the draft declaration from the House. He said that this is really a historic opportunity for all embs to come together and to adopt this charter. this will give lot of force, lot of strength to each emb to undertake voter education in the most structured and institu-tional manner. and to bring about real qual-

itative changes in their democracy, he said that they are very impressed with what has been learned from all embs present here. He said that the participants embs have been reading this document for past couple of days very intensively. may we conclude that the house has a broad agreement with this document?

“spontaneous felicitations to H E Mr. ahmed Hassan, chairperson, Independent Electo ral

and boundaries commission, kenya and adoption of new delhi declaration”

as He mr. ahmed stood up to speak on the draft new delhi declaration, he was welcomed by dr nasim Zaidi, cec, india with greetings and applause for the outstand-ing work he had done as chairperson, iebc, Kenya

dr. Zaidi said, “mr ahmed Hassan please, our chairperson, iebc from Kenya and i am indeed very happy, i must also take this opportunity to appreciate and applaud the leadership which mr. ahmed Hassan has given to the independent electoral and boundaries commission successfully for many, many years and it was a surprise to us to learn that he is hanging his boots and laying down his office next month. and therefore, it is a kind of farewell to mr. ahmed Hassan also and we, the entire House applaud your leadership and the House would like to see another demonstration of your leadership in steering this House towards this document. may we please,” (followed by a big applause from the House for mr Hassan)

H E Mr ahmed Hassan:“thank you very much, dr. Zaidi for your kind words. after seven and a half years manag-ing elections i think i have had enough of it. i can do something else. i want to thank you for this conference and i wanted to just propose on behalf of the member embs to adopt this draft, the delhi declaration as many as of the opinions says aye.”audience: aye.Mr ahmed Hassan: aye.dr nasim zaidi: so, would anybody like to second it? i mean we are following a pure democratic process. We are all democratic institutions. either everybody says yes.Ms notemba tjipueja: sir namibia herenasim zaidi: Where, where? i don’t see. oh yes madam notemba, yes, yes.


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notemba tjipueja: yes, yes.dr nasim zaidi: you are saying yes, oh by raising your hands great. [laughing] can we have a democracy where everybody supports such a, such a fantastic outstanding doc-ument, please?dr quraishi, former cEc, India: before i second it, i want to add one point because all the actual points are talking about ourselves that we should be doing this but one basic problem which we had faced when we set up voter education division was resistance with the idea and the feeling was that the election commission should only be managing election conducting election, edu-cating people is not our job which is why many countries are not able to get funds easily. We saw in many presentations that in many countries it has been made a constitutional obligation. if we can introduce one clause with talks of need for allocation of appropriate fund for this as a very essential democratic requirement.dr nasim zaidi: i would draw your kind attention towards para number 11 where we are saying that embs will endeavour sufficient financial and human resources for better voter education. dr quraishi: all right. okay, thank you.dr nasim zaidi: yes. i hope it takes care of your concern. yes, mr sharma please.

Mr. s d sharma, senior fellow, ecimr sharma referred to the un mandate on ‘public information and voter education’ as spelt out specifically in ‘the united nations centre for Human rights in its Handbook on Human rights and elections (1994)’ and mentioned that the said guiding princi-ples have been specifically reproduced in the draft document. He said these provisions empower the emb’s to take up the voter education to fulfil the mandate for achieving universal adult suffrage and the other obligations laid down in the covenants of different un treaties.

dr Zaidi said that was absolutely right, the public information and voter education is an obligation emanating from of universal declaration of Human rights and if the House has read the very first page of the draft charter, extract of para 124 and 125 is there and does talk about the provisioning of adequate financial and human resources. so, we are drawing strength from united nation charter itself. so, can we have a big round of applaud for this document?

the draft resolution was unanimously adopted by the House with big applauds. a copy of the resolution ‘new delhi declaration on voter education for inclusive, informed & ethical participation’ is attached at annex i

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dr. Zaidi said that he would like to thank the entire House for such a unanimous decision on such a historic document. He said that if followed systematically, this will bring about qualitative change in future. He called upon mr umesh sinha, deputy election commis-sioner to take up the heavy task of follow up action on the delhi declaration as one part. but as the other part, he said it would be very important that all embs should share their experiences, their expertise, share var-ious other elements of the voter education. He said that as mentioned by some of the

participants, that all the compilation shall be made available to all embs.

With this the voice.net the e- plat-form for sharing of voter education resourc-es was launched by dr nasim Zaidi, Hon’ble chief election commissioner of india with his fellow election commissioners in pres-ence of the distinguished Heads of emb’s, senior representatives of the emb’s, inter-national institutions, organizations and ex-perts and other participants. He was assist-ed in this launch by sh umesh sinha, dec and ms padma angmo, director, eci.


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all presentations available athttp://voicenet.in/vnpresentation.htmconference readerhttp://voicenet.in/conference_reader/in-dex.html#/0new delhi declarationhttp://voicenet.in/ppt/new_delhi_declara-tion.pdfPhoto gallery of the conference.http://voicenet.in/icphoto.html

voiCe.net CoMes into oPeration ms. padma anGmo, director, sveep, eciWhile thanking dr nasim Zaidi, Hon’ble cec, she said that she would just run through a little bit of this voice.net with the deliberations of the conference whatever has been made ready including all the pre-sentations barring those of current session, have been uploaded; and can be down-loaded by the participants. the voice.net would be continuously updated henceforth. but, she said that we would like a lot of in-put from the participants and we would try to formulate a way in which it can be uploaded by the member embs and the member orga-nizations. ◆

Jan-Mar 2018 VoICE International | 1

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“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. it is not going to be a key note address because the key was used yesterday morning to un-lock the chapter. so, that has already been done. a very good evening to all of you. i am again standing before you after two days conference. i think this has been one of the most productive conferences that i have also attended in my long career. this was un-precedented and this was kind of historical international event in which so many embs

participated, so many embs made presenta-tion about their practices, conference reader was launched here and voice.net has been launched just now. the historic document has been adopted and i feel that this was the most unique occasion when the confer-ence was able to bring the subject of voter education to its rightful place. in fact, at the epicentre of the entire election management process and strategies and in past two days, all the election management bodies are go-

address bydr nasiM zaidi, Hon’ble cHief election commissioner, india



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ing back with the notion of importance of the vote. and therefore, i must quote from one of the important figures in latin american lit-erature, mr. Jose marti who said ‘the vote is a trust more delicate than any other for it in-volves not just the interest of the voter but his life, honour and future as well’. so, that kind of notion each one of us is carrying back to our offices and i am sure this will emphasize the value of a vote for a common citizen.i think in two days we have been able to en-sure that there is an imperative that the vot-er is fully enabled, informed, educated and empowered to take his decision in the most intelligent manner without external influence. yesterday, we mentioned to you that we had adopted a slogan, ‘no voter to be left behind’. this was at the beginning of the conference but after two days deliberation, i think we have to realign our perspective by our new slogan ‘every vote counts’. this will be an additional slogan. in the earlier slogan where we say that, no voter to be left behind, the re-sponsibility was upon our shoulder because there we were required to capture each vot-er on our system. but when we say, every vote counts, we are casting a responsibility on the voter to ensure that his or her vote is exercised in the most sincere and meaning-ful and ethical manner.

i do not have to talk much about ac-cepting that we have seen the papers and presentations made here in past two days. We learned that many countries have voter education defined under their legislation and we saw the example of usa, canada, Kenya, namibia and uganda. and we have also seen examples where there are no legislation, yet

voter education has been supported by the election management bodies, india is one example where without any legislation we have adopted the voter education program the sveep. and i think all countries through various interventions have tried to engage youth, have tried to engage women and have tried to engage various sections of the so-ciety, persons with disabilities, aboriginals, displaced persons and some countries have really setup very good institutions of excel-lence for voter education. one example was presented by Georgia and many successful stories, progressive initiatives and ground breaking innovations have also come forward in this conference from across the globe. the most important feature of this conference is the over arching spirit of cooperation, col-laboration and constructive mutual growth. and i think there was a very, very warm ca-maraderie, unison of purpose and pooling of synergies. and this was amply demonstrated in the adoption of our most important docu-ment for the, for the conference.

as we just concluded the two import-ant events, one, we have adopted the new delhi declaration on voter education. With suitable amendments, a new printed doc-ument will be brought out and will be sent to all the election management bodies. the second important event is this voice.net, the voter information communication and education network. this, we are adopting we are hosting it on our server. this will be housed in the election commission of india. We will invest resources whether financial or human. and we would try to run this initia-tive in the most efficient manner. and without

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255taking much more time, i would also like to request all the election management bodies that in order to operationalize the concept of voice.net, we would request all election management bodies to kindly nominate a nodal officer on voter education who can coordinate with us on this voice.net where we can continuously work in a coordinated manner. from the election commission of india side, we propose shri. umesh sinha as the executive secretary of the network for the first year and in the most democrat-ic manner we assure you that this will be rotated so that all embs have the ownership of this voice.net but we will continue to provide the resources – financial as well as human. the executive secretaryship will keep rotating.

and this reminds me once again to conclude by the magnificent words of mother theresa and the spirit

of cooperation and collaboration that was shown in this house and i quote from moth-er theresa, ‘i can do things that you cannot, you can do things that i cannot, together we can do great things’. and we have done great things in this House and with these few words i would once again like to acknowl-edge the excellent outstanding work done by umesh sinha, his team. i think i will be running short if i start, running short of time if i start naming everybody but to name a few if my memories start serving me well, yes ms. banerjee from undp, undp entire hierarchy, their resources which have been invested in this conference. most important actually i should begin by the continuous co-

operation of my colleague in the commission mr. Jyoti, mr. rawat for their unflinching sup-port to the resolution to host this conference and all through guiding this. undp has al-ways been supporting our initiative by various means. mr. ojha, international cooperation division, ms padma angmo sveep divi-sion which runs this entire program, mr s d sharma, former state election commission-er and senior fellow for his painstaking effort for preparing the conference reader, and the entire team of the election commission of india, chief electoral officers of various states. and lastly of course, our all election management bodies who have come from far and wide with heavy jet lag and i must thank all of you. this is was really a historic opportunity. this will go down in the memo-ry of election commission of india as one of the most outstanding and scintillating event. and i would like to thank you from the bot-tom of my heart on behalf of my colleagues mr. Jyoti, mr. rawat and as they say ‘insha allah’ we will meet again somewhere in some international conference and push this pro-cess forward. thank you very much.” ◆


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While presenting a formal vote of thanks she said that it was an honour to extend the heart-felt gratitude to the international delegates from election management bodies, experts from institutes and organizations working in the field of democracy and elections. as Hon’ble chief election commissioner had remarked that, international conference had truly become global by your presence but more so by the sheer variety and depth and perspective that your presentations have led

this topic of the conference. there is enthu-siasm and high level of excitement among the officers here, especially from india, we take away with us earnings and the ideas towards the common course of inclusive, informed and ethical electoral participation. she expressed gratitude to former chief election commissioners mr. brahma and dr. quraishi for their guidance, for gracing this occasion and made some very valuable interventions. she thanked the chief elec-

vote of thanksMs PadMa angMo, director sveep, eci

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257toral officers from different states and their teams whose real work at the ground level for voter education and outreach has yield-ed results that we were able to showcase in these two days from the indian side. they are our real heroes.

she also thanked representatives from various ministries who have graced this oc-casion and have been partnering with us for the wider quality outreach among the people. thanks to representatives of national po-litical parties for gracing the occasion. she thanked the civil society and media who are very important stakeholders toward inclusive and participative elections. she conveyed a big thanks to undp, our valued and reli-able partner who were with us from the very beginning when this idea of an international conference was conceived of. Gratitude to various divisions within the election com-mission of india who extended all support to make this conference a big success, special mention to communications protocol, it and the administrative division and the interna-tional cooperation division. she thanked the sveep division, small team but big efforts and bigger love for the cause, you made it happen. she thanked dr ms aarti aggarw-al for compeering different sessions of the gracefully. she thanked the youngsters who joined us as interns but became a part of the sveep team; they lent us freshness, energy enthusiasm that only youth can bring.

she thanked mr. s.d. sharma, for-mer state election commissioner and now senior fellow with eci, older in years but youngest perhaps in attitude and spirit. she thanked him for all his support and the com-

prehensive conference reader, a massive document that only he could have accom-plished. she thanked mr. umesh sinha dep-uty election commissioner for guidance and support in this entire conference, for instilling faith in me and our team that this was do-able and making us take this entire journey under your constant guidance. she thanked Hon’ble election commissioners, mr. a.K Jyoti and mr. o.p. rawat for the constant support. above all, she conveyed heartfelt gratitude to dr. nasim Zaidi, Hon’ble chief election commissioner of india for his vision for this global conference. she thanked him for meticulous guidance at every step and motivating the team to think global rather than just international. ◆


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neW delHi declaration

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Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

Mohammad aziz bakhtiariCommissioner,Independent Election Commissionmaster in sociology, ph d

awrang zebActing CEO,Independent Election Commissionbachelor (undergraduate)

australia

afghanistan

andreW kevin gatelyAssistant Commissioner, Australian Election Commissionbachelor of engineering (electrical), Grad. dip. computing

tiMothy John CourtneyFirst Assistant Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission Graduate of the university of new south Wales

lynn graCe White Assistant Commissioner, Australian Electoral CommissionGraduate of the australian institute of police management

265

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

Canada

fiJi

brazil

MarC Mayrand Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada lawyer, llb

fabio liMa QuintasDirector of the Electoral Judicial School of Brazil

Superior electoral Court of Brazildoctor of law, master of laws

karine Morin Acting Chief of Staff, Elections Canada mba

Mohammed saneem Supervisor of Elections, Fijian Elections Office bachelor of laws, professional diploma in legal practice

zubnah raeleen khanStakeholder Awareness CoordinatorFijian Elections Office pG diploma in development studies, bachelor of commerce majoring in Journalism and management/public administration, certificate in foundation studies, certificate in Graphic design


266

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

natia zaalishvili Director, Centre for Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Trainings of CEC of Georgia master of law

nino berulavaDeputy Director, Centre for Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Trainings of CEC of Georgia doctorate in labor economics

georgia

indonesia

kenya

Mr. hasyim asy’ari Commissioner, General Election Commission of the Republic of Indonesiaph.d in political sociology

ahmed issack hassanchairperson, independent electoral and boundaries commission (iebc)degree in law

festus Masudi rasi ndagoDirector, Voter Education and Partnerships, IEBCmba in business administration

267

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

kyrgyz rePubliC

lesotho

Malaysia

Maldives

gulnar dzhurabaeva, Member, Central Commission for Elections and Referenda of the Kyrgyz Republic Graduate in philosophy

liqabang lydia Macheli Civic Education OfficerIndependent Electoral Commission master of education (adult education), certificate in management of democratic elections in africa, bridGe Workshop facilitator

Christopher Wan soo keeMember, Election Commission, Malaysia diploma in management science, diploma in police science, bachelor of business management, master of business administration

norlinah binti Jamman Chief Assistant, Election Commissionbachelor of information technology

amjad Musthafa Vice Chairman, Election Commission of Maldivesbms from sri lanka


268

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

nazma nizam Administrative Officer, Elections Commission of Maldives bachelor of arts

Mohammad irfan abdool rahmaanElectoral Commissioner, Electoral Commissioner Office of the Mauritius ba (Hons) law

Mauritius

MeXiCo

MyanMar

Patricio balladosExecutive Director of Political Parties and Prerrogatives, Mexicolaw degree, master in comparative politics

aung MyintCommissioner, Union Election Commission b.a ( law ), l.l.b

hla tintCommissioner, Union Election Commissionb.a ( law), l.l.b

269

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

naMibia

nePal

Pakistan

notemba tjipueja Chairperson, Electoral Commission of Namibiabachelor of law

Marilyn vekondoroka katjitundu Deputy Director: Democracy Building and Voters EducationElectoral Commission of Namibia bachelor Honours degree in Journalism and communication technology, post Graduate diploma in business administration

ayodhee Prasad yadavChief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of Nepalphd. in economics

surya Prasad aryalUnder Secretary, Election Commission of Nepalmaster’s in public administration

shakeel ahmedMember, Election Commission of Pakistanm.p.a (usa) m.a ll.b


270

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

altaf ahmad Director, Election Commission of Pakistanmasters in english literature

Patilias gobarah gamatoChief Electoral Commissioner, PNG Electoral Commission diploma in public administration, diploma in management, bachelor of business and management and master of strategic management

fabiola MissianSystems Developer, PNG Electoral Commissionbachelor in commerce & information technology, diploma in commerce & commercial computing

PaPua neW guinea

PhiliPPines

sri lanka

Juan andres donato bautistaChairman, Commission on Electionllm, bs, llb

samantha Priyaleel JayasingheDeputy Commissioner, Sri Lanka Election Commission bachelor of science in agriculture, Honours, master’s in business studies

271

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

thailand

tunisia

Mudiyanselage kumudu saman sri rathnayakeAdditional Commissioner, Election Commission of Sri Lankapost Graduate

supachai-somcharoenChairman, Election Commission master of arts in public administration, barrister at law

kongyos boonrakLegal Officer, Election Commission barrister at law

arthisak-JomsuebwsitSpecialist to the Election Commissioner, Election Commission ba. in political science, ma. in social development

khameyel fenniche Commissioner, High Independent Election Commissionbachelor of science, post Graduate diploma in management


272

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

rym MehdiChief of Communication and Outreach Department, High Independent Election Commissionmasters degree in corporate Governance and international development (ongoing), post-graduate diploma of advanced studies (dea) in information and communication sciences, specialized post-gaduate studies (dess) in information technology, master in marketing, french baccalaureate in economics and social sciences

Peninah komuhendo sekabembe Principle Election Officer, Electoral Commission of Uganda bachelor in marketing

sam asiimwe rwakoojoExecutive Secretary, Electoral Commission of Ugandamasters degree in public administration& management, post Graduate diploma in public administration& management, first degree in mass communication

uganda

usa

thomas hicksChairman, US Election Assistance CommissionJ.d., b.a. & law

273

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

indiadr nasim zaidiChief Election Commissioner, Election Commission of Indiamaster’s degree in public administration, mason fellow for public policy, post Graduate diploma in business finance, doctorate in bio-chemistry

achal kumar JotiElection Commissioner, Election Commission of IndiaGraduated in science, masters in chemistry

om Prakash rawatElection Commissioner, Election Commission of Indiamsc. in physics, msc. in social development planning

umesh sinhaDeputy Election Commissioner, Election Commission of Indiamasters in business administration

vijay dev Deputy Election Commissioner, Election Commission of Indiabachelor of technology, mba


274

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

sandeep saxena Deputy Election Commissionerbe (civil engineering), mtech(Water resources), mba with specialisation in international finance, m.a. (economics), ph.d.

sudeep JainDirector General, Election Commission of Indiabachelor of engineering, masters in business administration

radha raturiChief Electoral Officer, UttarakhandGraduate in History (Honours), post graduate in public personnel management (Gold medal), diploma in mass communication (Gold medal)

rajesh lakhoniChief Election Officer, Tamil Nadube (electronics), m.tech (comm engg)

Chandrabhushan kumar,Chief Electoral Officer, Delhiphd (Geography), llb, ma in public administration

275

Deleg

ates F

rom El

ectio

n Man

agem

ent B

odies

dhirendra ojhaDirector, Election Commission of Indiamba, llb, ma in philosophy, pG diploma in french

Padma angmo Director, Election Commission of Indiab.tech, pG diploma in environment & sustainable development

s d sharma Senior Fellowelection commission of indiam. sc (H), mba

Team


276

Expe

rts

sheri lynn MeyerhofferInternational IDEA, Head of Missioncertificate of completion, executive education in conflict analysis and management royal roads university, Juris doctor (Jd), bachelor of arts (Hon), political science

ornit shani Senior Lecturer, Department of Asian Studies, Head, India Programme University of Haifa, Israel ph.d, university of cambridge, faculty of social and political sciences

karamjit singh Cbe, Trustee, Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centrema; postgraduate diploma in law

najia hashemeeUNDP, Regional Electoral Policy Specialistphd candidate , master’s degree in political science

vasu Mohan Regional Director, Asia-Pacific IFES, USAbachelor of arts (ba) in accounting & business administration, post conflict elections and democratic inclusion specialist

277

Orga

nising

Team

dr. aarti aggarwal(Consultant, SVEEP)

Pushpendra singh Chauhan(Web Developer)

saksham kumar(Computer Programmer)

ranjeet srivastava (Designer)

kunal dhir (Intern, SVEEP)

tanisha sharma (Intern, SVEEP)

tavishi aggarwal (Intern, SVEEP)

ramesh kumar (Senior Secretariat Assistant )

sujeet kumar Mishra (Under Secretary)

naresh kumar (Section Officer)

guncha batra aneja (Section Officer)

t.C kalra (Assistant Section Officer)

Pawan kumar bhatter (Assistant Section Officer)

shalini sharma (Assistant Section Officer)

shazia ali khan (Personal Assistant)

amarnath gupta (Junior Secretariat

Assistant)

lalita devi (M.T.S)

ElEction commission of indianirvachan sadan, ashoka road, new delhi – 110001tel: +91-11-23052205-18; fax: +91-11-23052219

url: eci.gov.inecisveep.nic.in

scan the qr code to open eci website on mobile/tablets.

Proceedings of

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