<p>I will always cherish the first time I voted, as a 19-year-old. It meant that I was now officially an adult.<br /><br /></p>.<p>I am never sure whether a person who does not vote loses the right to comment on the work of the representatives – perhaps because there are a dozen reasons why a person does not vote. Yet, I do remember being disappointed that I did not get to cast vote in the last parliament elections, in 2009, because I did not get leave to go to my native constituency, Mangalore.<br /><br />The Panchayat elections are on in Karnataka; this weekend, it will be held in Mangaluru too. This has brought back memories of all kinds regarding the casting of votes. The first time I went to a polling booth, I made a virtual fool of myself, forgetting that it was a confidential ballot. <br /><br />I do not recall the first time I pressed a button on an EVM, but in the 2014 parliament elections, I remember struggling to find my name in the voters’ list. That I voted not with my voter’s ID but only my number, supported by an identity card, reminded me of the umpteen examples of problems with voters’ IDs. <br /><br />One of my favourite functioning districts, Kolar, voted a week back. The Panchayat elections in 2010 saw the deputy commissioner – the district election officer, that is – give the voters up to 21 options of identification documents they could get instead of ‘missing’ voters’ ids. Very typically probably, the district also saw a round of ruckus thanks to the voters failing to follow the instruction.<br /><br />The Assembly elections of 2013 was the one occasion I did not regret missing a chance to exercise my franchise – my voter’s ID of Mangaluru had expired and I had not yet applied for one in Bengaluru. My only argument was that I was not qualified to vote in either of the constituencies. As a sub-editor, I had had to work on reports from Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts for a couple of years and, naturally, knew better about the who, what and how of these districts than other places. I think I hardly knew the names of all the contestants from either Mangaluru or Bengaluru.<br /><br />The question has surely come in other voters’ minds – if you know nothing about the candidates of ‘your constituency’, how valid or acceptable would your vote be? Would you not be doing an injustice to your role as a voter if you used your power with ignorance?<br />So, my only desire during the Assembly elections could not be fulfilled, as per law – I wanted to cast my vote in the undivided Kolar district, in any of the constituencies there. Then, to a certain extent at least, I would not have been ‘an actor in the play of democracy’, going on stage merely to find myself able to utter only nonsense.</p>
<p>I will always cherish the first time I voted, as a 19-year-old. It meant that I was now officially an adult.<br /><br /></p>.<p>I am never sure whether a person who does not vote loses the right to comment on the work of the representatives – perhaps because there are a dozen reasons why a person does not vote. Yet, I do remember being disappointed that I did not get to cast vote in the last parliament elections, in 2009, because I did not get leave to go to my native constituency, Mangalore.<br /><br />The Panchayat elections are on in Karnataka; this weekend, it will be held in Mangaluru too. This has brought back memories of all kinds regarding the casting of votes. The first time I went to a polling booth, I made a virtual fool of myself, forgetting that it was a confidential ballot. <br /><br />I do not recall the first time I pressed a button on an EVM, but in the 2014 parliament elections, I remember struggling to find my name in the voters’ list. That I voted not with my voter’s ID but only my number, supported by an identity card, reminded me of the umpteen examples of problems with voters’ IDs. <br /><br />One of my favourite functioning districts, Kolar, voted a week back. The Panchayat elections in 2010 saw the deputy commissioner – the district election officer, that is – give the voters up to 21 options of identification documents they could get instead of ‘missing’ voters’ ids. Very typically probably, the district also saw a round of ruckus thanks to the voters failing to follow the instruction.<br /><br />The Assembly elections of 2013 was the one occasion I did not regret missing a chance to exercise my franchise – my voter’s ID of Mangaluru had expired and I had not yet applied for one in Bengaluru. My only argument was that I was not qualified to vote in either of the constituencies. As a sub-editor, I had had to work on reports from Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts for a couple of years and, naturally, knew better about the who, what and how of these districts than other places. I think I hardly knew the names of all the contestants from either Mangaluru or Bengaluru.<br /><br />The question has surely come in other voters’ minds – if you know nothing about the candidates of ‘your constituency’, how valid or acceptable would your vote be? Would you not be doing an injustice to your role as a voter if you used your power with ignorance?<br />So, my only desire during the Assembly elections could not be fulfilled, as per law – I wanted to cast my vote in the undivided Kolar district, in any of the constituencies there. Then, to a certain extent at least, I would not have been ‘an actor in the play of democracy’, going on stage merely to find myself able to utter only nonsense.</p>
