Election Season

On our morning walk with Lalu today, Jeff and I passed an elementary school that's being used as a polling station. Today is the Phase 4 election date, which covers a good chunk of southeast Bihar and small sections of Patna city, including, as it turns out, our neighborhood. We realized that it was a polling station because there was a security guard in camouflage holding an enormous gun outside it, which isn't typical at this elementary school. 

 Due to the difficulty of coordinating and staffing thousands of polling stations across Bihar, the elections are taking place in 6 phases, from October 21 to November 20. All of the results will be declared on November 24. Phase 4 covers a lot of Maoist-troubled areas, so the newspapers have been brimming with descriptions of the government swaggering about, insisting that they will stamp down on any violence.

Part of the reason we didn’t realize that our neighborhood is in Phase 4 is that things have been so quiet here, in terms of campaigning anyway. When we were doing fieldwork in the more rural areas, the roads were full of refurbished vans and autorickshaws which were decked out with campaign materials, with loudspeakers on top declaring the glory and wonder of that particular candidate and/or party. Each town center we passed through had been taken over by one political party or another, who set up a big tent with banners and more loudspeakers, with slogans such as (for a Congress party tent) "Sonia Gandhi Zindabad! Zindabad! Students Zindabad! Zindabad! Teachers Zindabad! Zindabad!" Your Hindi for the day is this word: जिंदाबाद (zindabad), which google translate gives as "Hail!" but Rashmi translated as closer to "Hurray!"

So we were taken quite by surprise to find out that Digha Assembly Constituency (kind of like a congressional district), where we live, was in Phase 4. It's almost anti-climactic, but when Phase 5 and 6 roll around and more of the Assembly Constituencies in Patna are involved, there will be a good deal more fanfare.

Of course when we talk about "the elections," most of our friends and family are focused on the US midterm elections, coincidentally also happening at the same time. Being a good citizen, I requested an absentee ballot which my mom shipped to me here in Patna. And then I had the very jarring experience last night of poring through the 40-page Voter Information Pamphlet provided by my county for local issues (and the Secretary of State/Wikipedia pages for all of the statewide measures and candidates) - jarring because my brain is full of information about the Bihar elections (who's been convicted of murder, rape, extortion, etc.; which assembly constituencies are most likely to be violent; stuff like that). Needless to say, the state and local candidates in CA are considerably more tame.

In my lovely home state of California, we're really into democracy, so all of the registered voters in the state vote for a number of measures directly (rather than leaving the issues to the legislature). Even though it's a midterm election, we've still got a bunch of interesting ones, like legalizing marijuana (Prop 19) and allowing Big Oil to circumvent the EPA (Prop 23). In addition to the big state-wide measures, there are also a few local measures in Oakland, including a tax on non-medical marijuana (which I assume is in case Prop 19 passes, so Oakland gets its cut) and a $2/month phone tax to pay for city services, among others.

I was particularly tickled by the candidates for mayor. I shouldn't be surprised, but all kinds of people run for mayor of Oakland. The Voter Information Pamphlet section for mayoral candidates includes a description submitted by each candidate, with their name, occupation for the past 5 years, "Statement of Qualifications" and signatures of 20 supporters. Probably my favorite (although not who I voted for) was a guy named Larry Lionel Young Jr., who described his occupation for the past five years as, "teacher, realtor, actor, model, volunteer, coach, MC, host, moderator, pianist, musician." Surely in the midst of all of that experience is the makings of a perfect mayor! Another candidate started off his Statement of Qualifications with the following sentence, which indicates that politicians should perhaps be more sparing in their use of popular Bay Area buzzwords: "As Mayor I will have the entire rainbow of people's best interest in mind." You're right, that's not grammatically accurate. But it's not like he's running for school superintendent, right?

And of course, Jeff being Jeff, he tried to convince me that he's entitled to decide some of the people and measures that I vote for, because he almost lives in California. He was pushing really, really hard for me to vote for one particular candidate for the US House of Representatives, 9th district: Gerald Hashimoto. His rationale was two-fold. First, as a child, he used to watch a show about a character named "Hashimoto, Japanese house mouse," so the name stirs fond memories. The second reason is that where other candidates provided tag lines below their names on the ballot such as "Congresswoman" (Democratic), "Community Volunteer" (Green), and "Retired Teacher" (Peace and Freedom), Gerald Hashimoto went with the ever-popular "Candy Maker" (Republican).

And he's not the only candidate with a really silly tagline. Would you vote for a candidate for Lieutenant Governor based on his qualifications as a "Cultural Spiritual Advisor" (Green)? What about Secretary of State candidate Merton D. Short, "Aviator" (American Independent)? Or Senator candidate Edward C. Noonan, "Computer Store Owner" (American Independent)?

So basically, elections everywhere are crazy, whether it's the silly innocent crazy of California's extreme participatory system or the rather more worrisome crazy of Bihar's heated assembly elections. And how cool is it to be voting for CA Governor, Senator and Congress(woman) at the same time as our friends are voting for Chief Minister and Members of the Legislative Assembly here in Bihar!

Also, in case you thought I was actually going to divulge who I voted for in a public forum, you'll have to remain unsatisfied. However, I can tell you that, much to my surprise, I voted for almost as many Green party candidates as I did for Democrats. I must be uber-ultra-liberal, huh?