An end-line survey, commissioned by the Election Commission (EC) of India, reveals that people in the State predominantly view voting as tedious.
Carried out to ascertain the level of knowledge, attitude, behaviour and practices (KABP) of voters after the completion of the 2016 Assembly election the survey found that when asked whether voting was a cumbersome chore, 885 persons said “agreed” and 98, “strongly agree.”
This means that 983 of 1,146 persons, accounting for around 85% of the people surveyed, had a negative perception about the process.
On the issue of voting being tedious, the number of respondents who said “strongly disagree” were 20; “disagree” 54 and “neither agree nor disagree” 89. The survey advised the Commission “to take up more initiatives” to address the needs of the people.
Though the study, covering over 120 booths in 24 constituencies of six districts, was held after the election, the authorities could not release the findings immediately as R.K. Nagar, one of the Chennai constituencies covered, fell vacant by the time the survey work was over and the talk of a byelection had started doing the rounds since early 2017.
“Only a few months ago, the report on the survey’s findings was published,” said an official in the State Elections Department. Theni, Thanjavur, Namakkal, Tiruvannamalai and Ramanathapuram were the other five districts. ( The Hindu has been provided with a copy of the report.)
‘Free and fair’
To a question whether elections were held “freely and fairly” in the country, around 74% of the respondents replied in the affirmative and nearly two-thirds felt that electronic voting machines provided “accurate result.”
The survey had dealt with media preference of the voters. As many as 62.3% of the respondents said they used newspapers/magazines almost every day. Television had obtained a positive response from about 91% of the respondents. Radio and internet were being used daily by about one-third of the people.
As for their preferred source of news on elections, around 73% of the respondents opted for television, followed by 9.5% for mobile phone. Family and friends came third with 6.6% and internet 3.84%, while newspapers/magazines were used by a little over 2%.
