Automation Of Election Process For District Election Officer (RO) By Election MIS Software

Transcription

1 Automation Of Election Process For District Election Officer (RO) By Election MIS Software A. K. Bhatnagar, Scientist-E NIC Abstract: Election process of MPs and MLAs for Parliament and State Assembly is predefined and based on predefined systematic procedures to complete within a time frame with zero error. Election Commission of India delegates the power to District Election Officer (DEO) / Returning Officer in a transparent manner right from nomination to the declaration the of Winner as MP/MLA. This is a very tedious process which has been automated by our software. This software manage the Polling Personnel process which includes Election employees selection, duty assignment, training, party formation, three stage randomization, duty orders of Polling party on Polling Stations etc as per Election Commission guidelines. Keywords: Election, Parliament Election, Assembly Election, Polling Personnel, Randomization, District Election Officer, Polling party, Election Commission guidelines. 1 INTRODUCTION INDIA has a Parliament for the Union which consists of a President and two Houses to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of the People. The House of the People consist of (a) five hundred and thirty members and not more than 6 chosen by direct election from territorial constituencies in the States, and (b) twenty members and not more than7 to represent the Union territories, chosen in such manner as Parliament may by law provide. India is a constitutional democracy with a parliamentary system of government and at the heart of the system is commitment to hold regular, free and fair elections. These elections determine the composition of the government, the membership of the two houses of parliament, the state and union territory legislative assemblies, the presidency and vice-presidency. Under Section 21 and 22 of the R.P. Act, 1951, the Election Commission of India appoints the Returning Officer and Assistant Returning Officer for a constituency, in consultation with the State Governments and the Union Territories as the case may be. The Returning Officer has a pivotal role in election management. He/she is so called because he/she conducts the election in a constituency and returns elected candidate. A Returning Officer is responsible for overseeing the election in one constituency or sometimes in two, as directed by the Election Commission of India. The duty of a returning officer is to efficiently conduct the election to the Assembly/Parliamentary Constituency. This involves duties at various stages. To depute polling officers to the polling booths with election materials is one of them. The election management is transparent so that there is no scope for complaint of partiality from any stakeholder. Under Section 26 of the Representation of People Act 1951 the District Election Officer is responsible for the appointment of the Presiding Officer and staff for each polling station in respect of all Assembly constituencies comprised within that district. 2 ELECTION PROCESS MANAGEMENT- Election process involves the prime duty of Returning Officer to efficiently conduct the election for the Assembly/Parliamentary Constituency. This involves duties at various stages as follows: To publish the notice regarding the election To accept and scrutinize the nomination forms To publish the affidavits of candidates To allot symbols to the contesting candidates To prepare the list of contesting candidates To print and dispatch postal ballot papers To print ballot papers for the Electronic Voting Machine To prepare the EVMs for the elections To train polling personnel in all aspects, including use of EVMs To depute polling officers to the polling booths with election materials To supervise the functions of the polling officers in his/her Assembly Constituency on the day of the poll To ensure that the polling goes on in a free and fair manner and as per the statutory provisions To designate the counting centers and get them approved by the Commission well in advance To send notice to the candidates about the place, date and time of counting of votes To appoint and train counting staff To count the votes and declare the result. 3 ELECTION COMMISSION PROCESS AND GUIDELINES An application software package was developed in The software application uses Microsoft Access as database and Visual Basic 6 as frontend. The application software was successfully implemented in 51 districts of Madhya Pradesh for Loksabha Election (2004,2009 and 2014) and Vidhansabha Election (2003, 2008 and 20013) and in all bye elections also. 3.1 General Guidelines while requisitioning polling staff For the purpose of efficient control of the polling personnel and economy in expenditure on travelling allowances etc each district as far as practicable should use its own personnel. The polling parties are to be comprised of a proper mix to the extent possible of central government/central PSU and state government / state PSU employees. The database of the above official should also contain the AC number, name, part number and the serial number of the electoral roll in which he/she has been enrolled in addition to his/her residential address and address of office where posted. Seniority of officials should properly be taken care of while giving election related duty and it should be ensured that a senior official is not put on duty under an official who is junior to him/her. Presiding officers and polling officers are to be classified on the basis 39

2 of scale of pay and their post and rank. The presiding officer should be of higher scale/grade in comparison to all polling officers. 3.2 Proper Mixing of Polling Personnel Drawn From Different Offices In order to avoid any allegation, we should ensure a proper mix of polling personnel drawn from different offices and departments at the time of formation of a polling party. No person shall be assigned polling duties in an assembly constituency where he/she is employed or resides. He/She should also not to be posted in his/her home constituency. 3.3 Randomization of Polling Party District Election officer should obtain a complete database of officers eligible for polling party duties from respective authorities. All relevant information should be compiled into a database. The database should contain 125% of the total anticipated requirement of election staff. From the database, randomized list of required number of polling persons should be generated (including reserve) by specially designed computer software using "Random number generation technique". Presence of observers is not required at this stage. Standard software in this regard shall be provided by the CEO of the state/ut. Observer's presence is not necessary. The second stage randomization exercise should be done in the presence of the observers deployed in the constituency. At this stage the actual polling parties shall be formed randomly by application of computer software using the Random Number Generation Technique. Particulars of AC where an official is going to be deployed will be available but specific polling station for poll duty shall under no circumstance be known. Second randomization of polling personnel can be done up to 12 days before the date of poll with the condition that during the second training of polling personnel should know their team members. The third stage randomization exercise shall take place on the day prior to actual dispersal of polling parties and in no case earlier to that. Now the allocation of polling stations to the polling parties will be done using the same software as above. Observer presence and satisfaction is mandatory. 4 ELECTION RANDOMIZATION SOFTWARE FOR POLLING PERSONNEL National Informatics Centre, Madhya Pradesh has developed software in year 2003 by fulfilling the above mentioned conditions related to depute polling officers to the polling booths and software is approved by CEO MP. The software was designed in such a way that follows the guideline issued by ECI and provides the Returning officer/district Election officer to conduct the polling personnel process in a easy and transparent way. The software has the following modules Data Entry of polling personnel department wise. Randomization of various stages ( 1st, 2nd and 3rd) Training Modules. Reports Modules The software has the following features: Data entry screen for capturing the employee database is very user friendly and provides the facilities in client/server environment. Proper mixing of polling personnel as guidelines issued by ECI India. Three stage randomization and lock facilities of every stage. Various reports like Check list of employees, Polling party register, Identity Card. (add more reports) etc. 3.4 Form for appointment Appointment letters of presiding officers and polling officers should be issued as soon as polling parties are formed after second state randomization but in their appointment letters number and name of polling station at which they will be on duty shall not be indicated. Such information regarding place of duty shall be intimated to them only at the time of departure and not before that. 3.5 Photo Identity card to the polling personnel An identity card shall be issued to the polling personnel by the District Election officer (DEO)/Returning Officer (RO) without fail. 3.6 Training of Polling Personnel The date and venue of training of polling personnel shall be decided well in advance. The polling personnel selected for undergoing training through Randomization process should be informed about the training programme in time through sponsoring authorities. 40

3 5 SOFTWARE MODULES 5.1 Data Entry of Polling Personnel department Wise 5.2 Randomization First Randomization 41

4 5.2.2 Second Randomization Third Randomization 5.3 Training 42

5 5.4 Reports 43

6 5.5 Software Statistics in Various Election of Madhya Pradesh - Polling parties shall be formed randomly, through application software. Three-stage randomization will be adopted. First, from a wider district database of eligible officials, a shortlist of a minimum 120% of the required numbers will be randomly picked up. This group will be trained for polling duties. In the second stage, from this trained manpower, actual polling parties as required shall be formed by random selection software in the presence of General Observers. In the third randomization, the polling stations will be allocated randomly just before the polling party s departure. The software was used in Assembly and Loksabha General Elections of Madhya Pradesh. The statistics are given below: 44

7 5.6 Tables- Showing Election software interaction with Polling Stations. Election Statistics (Madhya Pradesh State) Name of State Total No. of Assembly(AC) /Parliamentary Constituencies (PC) Total No. of Electors Total Polling Station Madhya Pradesh Assembly Year 2008 AC Madhya Pradesh Assembly Year 2013 AC Madhya Pradesh Loksabha-Year 2009 PC Madhya Pradesh Loksabha-Year 2014 PC Table- Showing Election software interaction with Polling Personnel. Name of State (Election Year) Assembly Election (Madhya Pradesh State) Total Polling Station Required Officer for polling duties (120%) P0 P1 P2 P3 Total Officer Required Madhya Pradesh (2013) Madhya Pradesh (2008) Where P0= Presiding Officer, P1=Polling Officer 1,P2= Polling Officer 2,P3= Polling Officer 3 Name of State (Election Year) LOK SABHA GENERAL ELECTIONS (Madhya Pradesh State) Total Polling Station Required Officer for polling duties (120%) Total Officer Required P0 P1 P2 P3 Madhya Pradesh (2014) Madhya Pradesh (2009) Election Software Statistics in Various Election of Madhya Pradesh Assembly Election 2008 Assembly Election 2013 LOK SABHA GENERAL ELECTIONS 2009 LOK SABHA GENERAL ELECTIONS2014 No.of Polling Station Required Officer for polling duties (120%) Actual Officer deploy for polling duties (110%)

8 No of Polling officer INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 7, ISSUE 1, JANUARY 2018 ISSN Table- Graphical interaction with Polling Stations v/s Polling personnel deputed. Statistics in Various Election of Madhya Pradesh - Polling Party Formation Assembly Election 2008 Assembly Election 2013 LOK SABHA GENERAL ELECTIONS 2009 LOK SABHA GENERAL ELECTIONS2 014 No.of Polling Station Required Officer for polling duities (120%) Actual Officer deploy for polling duities (110%) CONCLUSION The software is very useful for conducting the election process (Polling personnel) in a transparent way. All the districts of MP have used the software without any technical problem since 2003 in various elections (General, Assembly or bye election). The user interface is very easy and time taken for randomization is very less. [8] 14/Result_book_2014.pdf ACKNOWLEDGMENT I want to acknowledge the guidance and support of Mr A K Saxena Retired STD, Mr Manish Malviya Scientist B, Mr Yogendra Thakur Scientist B, and Sandeep Varma, Scientist E. REFERENCES [1] ECI-Election Manual- Extract from Constitution [2] [3] Handbook for Returning Officer ECI INDIA [4] [5] %202013/PressNote_VS_ pdf [6] /ElectorsSummary.pdf [7] /Highlights.pdf 46