Mobile app to tap into youth votes

To encourage people to cast their vote in the December 2013 Assembly elections, the Delhi Election Commission has started some initiatives to make things easy for people seeking information related to their local booth or wanting to register in the electoral rolls.

According to state chief electoral officer Vijay Dev, Delhi will be the first city in India to give access to Google Maps for people to gather poll-related information, such as location of a polling booth, and for checking names in electoral rolls.

Google Maps

“Google Maps provide high-resolution aerial images of urban areas, and we are going to use them to give information to voters. There will be a special icon on Google Maps, identifying the location of polling booths. Once a person clicks on a particular icon, one will get details of the areas from where one can vote at a particular booth,” said Dev.

“However, before that, we will use them (maps) to point out voter registration centres so that people can get themselves enrolled for voting,” he said.

Dev said the initiative is being taken on the instructions of the Election Commission of India to encourage people to exercise their franchise.

Stressing that youth should participate in the voting process, Dev said the EC will create a cellphone application to help smartphone users register their names in electoral rolls.

Special application

“To encourage youth to enroll in the electoral rolls, we will soon launch a special mobile application. This will make it easier for youth to get themselves registered,” he said. The mobile application will facilitate hassle-free registration.

While applying online, young people often find it difficult to fill information like name of constituency and sub-division, which they are not aware of, Dev added.

“In the mobile application, they will just need to punch in their names and residence address. All other information like name of constituency and sub-division will automatically come up in the relevant boxes,” CEO said.

A fresh drive for comprehensive revision of electoral rolls in the city will begin with the draft publication of electoral rolls on the EC website on October 15. People will get a month to file claims and objections. After going through the process, the revised electoral roll will be published on January 10, 2013.