Campaign begins for digital voting

GUWAHATI: Advocacy group, Social Actions for New Alternatives (Sana), has launched a campaign to explore options for digital voting. In this day and age, when most financial transactions are conducted online, digital voting should also be allowed, Sana has said.

Sana executive director Bidhayak Das on Friday said that they would soon write to the Election Commission of India and all political parties to explore options for exercising one's franchise digitally. "If so many things can happen digitally in a secured manner, one can also vote digitally. This will definitely help more people to vote. This is a part of the clean election campaign that we have launched," Das said.

Sana managing trustee, Nayanjyoti Bhuyan, said that "violence mapping" is one of the key components of their clean election campaign.

"Through our campaign, we will also record whether poll-related violence takes place. Voters need to vote freely and without fear. At present, our campaign is for the Lok Sabha polls in Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland. We are networking with civil society groups, community-based organizations and volunteers for creating awareness on the necessity of clean elections as well as ensuring that voters cast their ballots freely," Bhuyan said.

Das said that besides violence mapping, the campaign will keep a watch on hate speech, malpractices during voting and encouraging first time voters to participate in the election.

"We will be monitoring campaigns of political parties till the final lap, and the period between voting and the results, as well as the post-election situation. Our findings on various violations will be updated on social media after being verified by the Election Commission," Das said.