Bihar Ass Time

The Bihar elections have been going on since October 21st, and will continue until November 20th, and on Monday they hit Patna. The city went into lockdown: the military sealed the borders and let no one in or out, and no cars or autorickshaws were allowed on the roads. This meant that besides bicycles and Election Commission jeeps, the streets were effectively empty of vehicles, which in Patna is pretty eerie. Lots of soldiers and policemen with long rifles roaming everywhere though, and also quite a few youth with neon vests that said "Civil Security"; I think some police just gave these guys Rs 100 and a vest and said "go make sure everyone behaves nicely". After election day the police and media claimed victory in keeping the polls secure, with the front-page story of the Times of India opening with the following statement: "Barring an incident of blast by Maoists in the jungle of Jamui and two explosions on the outskirts of Patna, peaceful polling marked the fourth phase of the Bihar assembly elections."

My friend and I went to observe some polling booths to see Bihar democracy close-up. A polling booth is supposed to serve approximately 1000 registered voters, so in a densely-settled urban locality polling booths are not spaced very far apart. I only had to walk a few blocks from my apartment to find one in a private school building (being election day, everyone had off work and school). My goal was to watch the procedure and in particular take note of any illicit activities, such as political parties buying votes or hustling voters as they went to the polls. Unfortunately it was too difficult to remain an observer and soon became a participant. My friend and I noticed a man staring very intently at the electoral rolls outside the school gates, trying in vain to find his name. We approached him and offered to help, so he showed us his voter id card and said he had voted at this place in the past and that he was confused because he could not find his name in the rolls. We noticed immediately that he was at the wrong polling booth owing to the fact that delimitation (redrawing of electoral boundaries) had occurred since the last elections, meaning that he was now supposed to vote elsewhere but had not been informed of this. We directed him to the Election Commission officers manning the booth to see if they could help. However, it turns out that all booth-level officers only have rolls for their own booths, and since this guy was not in the rolls for that booth they had no idea where he was supposed to vote (there are about 250 polling booths per assembly constituency and 10 assembly constituencies in Patna).

Since I was near my apartment, I ran home to get my laptop then ran back to the polling booth. The man was getting on his bicycle to leave but my friend had convinced him to wait for me. I pulled up the Election Commission website and found the search function for voters, typed in the man's voter id, then determined that he was not only at the wrong polling booth but in the wrong constituency. I found the exact address of the correct polling booth on another website, then sent the man on his way. He was very happy to be enfranchised and shook my hand as he got on his bike and left. As soon as he left, another man came up to me and said his name was not on the voter rolls. I searched for his id and directed him to the correct voting booth a few kilometers away. A third man came up to me and I did the same. Then three armed soldiers approached to see what was going on, so my friend and I packed up and left.

Based on this short experience, it seems like delimitation has created big problems for voters in Patna. It's unfair to extrapolate this experience to rural areas since most villages have around two polling booths, so when polling boundaries are redrawn it is not difficult to deduce where you should vote when you don't find your name in the first polling booth's rolls. But in cities where 50 polling booths might exist within one square mile, it is a hopeless endeavor to figure out where you are supposed to vote if you do not have access to a computer and the Election Commission's online records. The Election Commission laments the fact that Patna had only 51% turnout in Phase 4, but what can they expect if they don't tell people where to vote?

I apologize for the crude title of this post. It comes from another gem put out by the Election Commission on their official maps of the phase-wide elections. My guess is it's supposed to stand for "Bihar Assembly (Elections) Time," but judging from how the EC et al have performed this past month, I'm not sure it means anything other than what it says.