Monday, September 24, 2007

Super Cumulative Voting

This is a weird concept and a totally new one (I hope). I seek to add a new dimension to voting. Something that will change the way we look at democracy, forever. Have you ever wondered how nice it would be if we could avoid the hassles of voting? My personal opinion is that almost half of the ppl eligible to vote never exercise their right. Actually, one cannot blame these poor ppl. Which comfortable man, used to the luxury of his air conditioned home and car will volunteer to stand in a queue at the mercy of all the elements, be it the scorching sun, or the torrential rains? These rains too make it a point to arrive right on the voting day. God only knows why. And worse, anti social elements make the best use of this negligence or whatever one can call it, by using the unused votes for their benefit(this is only a guess and a definite possibility)! This method, if implemented will make sure that every person eligible to vote will do so and that too without sacrificing his comfort, the best part about this process.
Enough of suspense, i guess. I think i should direct this letter straight to the Honorable Shri Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the only person who, I think, can even dare to take this up. I really respect him a lot and not just because of the IT revolution in the state or the comfort he has added to everyday life due to his initiatives such as the e seva. He is one leader who has a real good foresight and is actually concerned about development in the long range. Moreover he happens to be a good friend of another icon of mine, Mr. Bill Gates. As you might have guessed by now, this concept is centered around computers and automation, like everything else of this age.
Here is the main idea, the basic revolution we seek to bring about. Every person must be able to vote not just once in five years or whenever a government falls but everyday. When he/she is happy with the government, sad, or suddenly feels like rewarding or punishing the ppl who are supposed to ensure his/her safety. What better than bein able to vote anytime one wants? This system has more to offer than just making sure that every citizen exercises his rights. What the leaders do today and have been doing since ages is to make a truckload of promises during election time and conveniently forget them for the next four years and then put up a show of a lot of work in the last year so that they can ask for five more years. If every day of their rule could be judged, wouldn they have to be on their toes all the time??
So, the concept is good but impractical, eh? We have worked in this field too and have the solutions ready for you and strange though it may seem, the solution is quite simple. As the government has anyway decided to issue ID cards to every citizen for obvious security reasons, and there are a whole lot of readers in place already called ATM centres there is nothing new the government has to do. All it has to do is to provide every village with a kind of ATM centre that can read their cards.. Such a centre will record every time a citizen casts a vote and send it immediately to a centralized data base. The card should be mandatory and should naturally resemble an ATM card. In case you doubt this system's security, I would say, we have already experimented with Electronic Voting Machines and tested the reliability of electronic voting. And ppl already have enough trust in electronics to carry out transactions worth millions through computerized banking. The software for all this also should not be a problem as we happen to be the largest providers of software solutions on the whole planet. Now feasible?
Ok, what if some nut head keeps voting every other minute and thus prevents the others from exercising their chance? Like we limit the amount of cash that can be drawn per day, every person or every card rather should be eligible to vote only once a day. These votes polled by the fifth anniversary of the government will be counted and the count will decide the next government. As we now do not need billions every time a government is to be chosen, maybe we can change governments every other year.. Or maybe we should give them five years time to implement their promises.. Like every other thing about computers, this system too gives us a great deal of freedom and we are free to do what we wish. After all, the basic funda of democracy is freedom, right? I see no flaws in this process. If the initial investment for the cards and the readers(ATM like centers) in villages is a bother, we should realize that we may be spending once and for all what we spend for every election. Not just the general elections that come up every five years but even the regional ones like the municipal elections or even the Panchayat elections can be avoided forever and billions saved.
Here it is my humble request to my fellow countrymen, brothers and sisters, as i learnt in school. Please give this a thought. Maybe we'll gain the distinction of bein the best democracy in the world, not just the largest one..