Articles by PG Bhat

The Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka (CEO-KA), had published on his website the latest electoral rolls – the version that was effective for this Lok Sabha election. Though the mother roll for this election was published last October, an addition/deletion drive was undertaken afterwards. The rolls with these modifications were published twice - once on 16th January, and the final rolls on 26th March. But the final rolls appeared on the CEO-KA website on 10th April only, leaving little time to respond for those who went missing from the rolls. Additions CEO-KA had advertised widely inviting the citizens to register as…

Gospel of Matthew 12:25, KJV:25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto him, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. The polling booth where you cast your vote, corresponds to a specific geographic area called a ‘part’. Each parliamentary and assembly constituency is divided into several parts, and the structure of a part is the same for both. A part should be formed in a way that the polling booth is within a walkable distance of two kilometres for all voters. For example, a booth in…

Gospel of Matthew 12:25, KJV:25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto him, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. The polling booth where you cast your vote, corresponds to a specific geographic area called a ‘part’. Each parliamentary and assembly constituency is divided into several parts, and the structure of a part is the same for both. A part should be formed in a way that the polling booth is within the walkable distance of two kilometres for all voters. For example, a booth in…

Political blame games and balms have kept the pot boiling for the past five years. With parties crossing boundaries, not a dull moment, though dignity was often in want. Now we have the real elections to the Lok Sabha. Should we be voting? A moot question. Don’t even ask. Speak through your ballot. If you have not registered as a voter yet, do so immediately. The following are the last dates for voter registration in some of the key cities: Delhi - April 13, 2019 Mumbai - March 29, 2019 Kolkata - April 19, 2019 Trivandrum - March 24, 2019…

Political blames and balms have kept the pot boiling for the past five years. With parties crossing boundaries, no dull moments, though lack of dignity was often seen. Now we have the real elections to the Lok Sabha. Should we be voting? A moot question. Don't even ask. Speak through your ballot. If you have not registered as a voter yet, do so immediately, as March 16th is the last date for registration. “The last date for voter registration would be 10 days before the last date of candidate nomination. In Bangalore, the last date for candidate nomination is March…

Election Commission of India (ECI) approved a proposal of a programme for Special Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls, by the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka (CEO-KA). Of the nine listed activities in the letter, we the citizens should note the following: 1. House to house visit by BLOs 16 Jul to 10 Aug 2018 2. Rationalisation of Polling Stations 27 Aug to 15 Sep 2018 3. Publication of integrated electoral rolls 10 Oct 2018 4. Period for claims and objections 10 Oct to 20 Nov 2018 5. Disposal of claims and objections by 20 Dec 2018 6. Final publication of electoral…

Low voter turnout shames India's IT city Bangalore states NDTV and others nod in agreements. The authorities, politicians, noted citizens, all are aflame criticising the citizens for not participating in the elections. Newspaper have used highly derogatory phrases - especially Kannada newspapers - displaying cheap journalism and reporting wrong data. Real voter turnout percentage in Bengaluru has to be more than 70%. If it was to be larger than this with the shamefully poor electoral roll management, we should have grave concerns about illegal votes and rigging. Crude Numbers First In January 2018, District Electoral Officer, Bangalore, (Commissioner, BBMP) published…

Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, website has been playing Peekaboo with the citizens for some time. When we think that we have found it, at last, it misbehaves for a few days and hides again. If you are a visitor without purpose, it could be entertaining to see various avatars of the site. Now I see the home page of Drug Control Department when I try to see the CEO’s site. However, by entering http://164.100.80.163/ceo3/ we can get the CEO’s page. Peekaboo! In addition to different websites appearing when we look for CEO-KA website, the data we get from different official…

Large number of duplicate entries in electoral rolls means lack of truthfulness in statistical observations, and consequent rhetorical statements like "people in cities don't vote." When people say that turnout % in an election is low in Bengaluru, that calculation is based on electoral rolls bloated with duplicate entries and illegal entries like those of dead voters. For the past six years, every time the CEO Karnataka published the electoral rolls, I have been reporting the counts of suspected duplicate entries by category. Whereas the occurrences of duplicate entries have reduced over the years, a lot of duplicate records remain…

Among other useful features, The National Voters’ Services Portal (NVSP) allows us to search for voter data by entering the Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number or voter name. Unfortunately, the data we get with this query refers to an older version of the electoral rolls, though the result claims to have been updated on the date of query – misleading us further. This is an old (and ignored?) problem.  Exactly two years ago, I reported to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), his Director, IT, and the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka (CEO-KA), about this issue. Since then I have written to them…