The Election Commission announced the dates for 2019 Lok Sabha polls on Sunday in which over 15 million new voters would be casting their votes for the first time.
Here are some facts from the first general election held in 1952 to the 17th Lok Sabha elections due in a month.
The Election Commission announced the dates for 2019 Lok Sabha polls on Sunday in which over 15 million new voters would be casting their votes for the first time.
Here are some facts from the first general election held in 1952 to the 17th Lok Sabha elections due in a month.
According to 'THE VERDICT' by Prannoy Roy and Dorab Sopariwala:
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the top three states which will have the largest number of women who are not registered despite being eligible voters are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. These three states alone will account for over 10 million of the 21 million missing women voters in 2019.
- Of the 21 million missing women voters, six million are from Uttar Pradesh alone, which means around 80,000 women on average per constituency who are missing.
- This will be the first Lok Sabha election where women voters’ turnout will be above men. Earlier, women voters’ turnout used to be 20 per cent behind men. Turnout does not refer to numbers as there are more men on the electoral rolls.
Voting trends since 1951-52
Last 70 years can be divided into three phases:
- First 25 years, 1952-77, voters were trusting of their leaders. It was pro-incumbency.
- Voters saw that leaders were not delivering, there was a slow rate of growth, leaders only came to the constituency during elections. Voters started getting angry. By 1977 they were fed up.
- 1977 to the next 25 years, voters threw every government out. It was the anti-incumbency phase.
- In first 25 years, 80 per cent of governments were voted back, next 25 years, 71 per cent governments were voted out. Now it is 50-50; half are voted back.
- Governments that are delivering are being voted back. It performs or perish.
General elections in the past:
-In 2014, when the BJP swept to power, the Lok Sabha elections were held across nine phases beginning April 7 and ending May 9. The counting of votes had taken place on May 16.
-The total contestants in the fray were 8,251, with an average of 15 candidates in each constituency. However, a deposit was forfeited in case of 7,000 contestants.
-A total of over 55 crore voters (66.3 per cent) exercised their vote, while there were 9.27 lakh polling stations. There were nearly 60 lakh ‘NOTA’ votes.
-Out of total 543 elected candidates, only 62 were women from 668 who had contested.
-First Elections Commissioner was Sukumar Sen, serving from 21 March 1950 to 19 December 1958, who headed first two general elections-- 1951 and 1957.
-2,473, 850 ballot boxes, made out of solid steel boxes, were fixed in first elections in 1952.
-224,000 policemen were assigned to guard against violence and to ensure free and fair first elections.
-In 1962, the turnout of women was only 47 per cent (of the total female electorate), yet by 2014, it had shot up to 66 per cent—up by nearly 19 percentage points. On the other hand, men’s turnout grew by only 5 per cent over the same period.
Facts on EVMs
-Electronic Voting Machines were first introduced way back in 1982 and 1983 as a test, and are now used universally in Indian elections.
-Indian EVMs are not connected to the internet or to any wider cloud or network. They are stand-alone machines that have no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capabilities. This is a major difference between India’s EVMs and those voting booths in the USA that have electronic voting, where connection to the internet can leave them vulnerable to hacking.
-The only way to access the number of votes stored in each EVM is to break open the seal which keeps each EVM secure. The seal can only be broken by an Election Commission official in the presence of representatives of all the candidates—and with all parties looking on, hawk-eyed.
-The biggest advantage of EVMs replacing ballot papers is that it has meant the end of the practice of booth-capturing that was so rampant in the old days.
-The Election Commission introduced a ‘paper trail’ for every button pressed and vote cast: a ‘touch and feel’ analogue evidence of exactly the same digital event.
- Every EVM now has a second machine attached which is effectively a printer. Except, this printer, called by Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is sealed, and has a small window behind which a slip of paper passes for ten seconds before it falls into a sealed container at the base of the VVPAT (printer).
-The small glass window is at the front of the VVPAT, through which voters can ‘see’ the party that they have just voted for, as a confirmation that the EVM has recorded their vote correctly.