The Election Commission will launch a multi-lingual mobile application empowering people across the country to share evidence of malpractice by political parties, their candidates and activists ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, directly with the electoral body.
Tried in Karnataka
Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat told The Hindu on Tuesday that such an application, called Model Code of Conduct Violation Reporting App, was made available for the first time in Bengaluru in the run-up to the recently concluded Karnataka Assembly polls.
“The application registered a total of 780 downloads and complaints were received from the users. Accordingly, action was taken by the officials concerned in all the cases. Through this mechanism, we intend to encourage larger public participation in checking corrupt practices and ensuring a free and fair election process,” said Mr. Rawat.
The application, part of the steps taken by the Commission to prevent abuse of money and muscle power, allows for sharing of photos and short audio and video clips from the spot itself.
“Geo-location of the reported incidents will also get recorded and the officials concerned will immediately receive the alerts. This will ensure an effective response,” said Mr. Rawat.
As part of the implementation, the application will also be made operational in the coming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Tackling social media
The growing abuse of social media bots for influencing public opinion has emerged as another major challenge for the Election Commission and plans are on to devise a counter mechanism.
In order to address such challenges in the cyber world, an entire floor at the EC headquarters has been dedicated to the development of an independent and advanced computer operations infrastructure having full access control. A social media cell is already functional.
“There are empirical studies establishing that bots have been used for manipulating public discourses,” Mr. Rawat said.
These bots are automated accounts often active on popular social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which use Artificial Intelligence to trigger and influence political debates with an objective to shape public opinion.
Research work in several international institutions over the past two years, including the Oxford University, have recognised the influence of such bots in the Brexit referendum and also in the United States (2014) and the French (2017) presidential elections. Experts have found evidence that bots are also programmed for spreading fake news on the Internet.
As for the 2019 general elections, the CEC said preparations had begun in February itself. A calendar of pre-defined goals with deadlines has already been circulated to all the offices and training programmes for officials are under way. Progress is being reviewed on a regular basis, he said.
