Every 4 years on the first Tuesday of November, Americans go out to vote for a new President. This year was no different and Tuesday saw the end of more than a year of campaigning that saw each party spend far in excess of a billion dollars. The polls predicted one of the closest races in US history. By midnight it was clear that the polls were wrong. And early on Wednesday morning, Mitt Romney conceded the election and President Obama was re-elected for a second term.
The election process was very interesting and there were a few lessons that India could learn and evaluate adopting. Interestingly there are an equal number of lessons for the US to learn to improve their election process. In my opinion, the top 3 lessons to be learnt from each other.
Lessons from the US
1. Early Voting
Several states in the US allow early voting. This basically means that in several states voting for the presidential election starts several weeks before election day. This helps people who are either travelling or working on election day to go vote and have their vote counted.
2. Transparent Funding
Individuals and companies are allowed to contribute to campaign funds. All of the information is publicly available. This enables legitimate collection of funds, recognizing the fact that campaigning needs significant funding and providing legitimate and transparent means to organize the same.
3. Public Debates
Currently there are 3 presidential debates and 1 vice-presidential debate held between the 2 main candidates. The debates allow both the candidates to publicly state their policy, opinions, and how they intend to takes the country forward if elected. The debate format allow their opponent as well as the moderator to challenge as well as seek clarifications on ambiguous statements.
Lessons from India
1. Counting Process
The counting process begins only after the last ballot has been cast. This ensures 2 things. The first is that every person with an intention to vote goes out and votes and that early trends do not influence voters where voting is still in progress. The second is that the final tally is an indicator of the actual will of the complete population and not skewed because of the early trends.
2. Organizing voting on Election day
In several places people had to wait for several hours to exercise their franchise. And this has been a perpetual problem in early voting as well as in previous elections. Indian election authorities have fine tuned the art of organizing elections and in spite of having a much larger electorate with a poorer infrastructure manage to conduct it in a manner where the voter normally does not wait for more than 15 - 30 minutes.
3. Electronic Voting Machines
Across the country India mainly uses EVM's or Electronic Voting Machines. These reduce the number of controversies. And make the process of counting not only faster but far more reliable. As an example in this years elections it took several days before Florida was able to announce its results of the Presidential Elections. The fact that Obama had won without Floria made this insignificant, else it could be a repeat of 1997 election fiasco, captured brilliantly in the film, "Recount".
In conclusion the systems used by the worlds greatest democracy and the worlds largest democracy are brilliant and admirable. And if each could pick up a few lessons from each other, both would be even more amazing.
The election process was very interesting and there were a few lessons that India could learn and evaluate adopting. Interestingly there are an equal number of lessons for the US to learn to improve their election process. In my opinion, the top 3 lessons to be learnt from each other.
Lessons from the US
1. Early Voting
Several states in the US allow early voting. This basically means that in several states voting for the presidential election starts several weeks before election day. This helps people who are either travelling or working on election day to go vote and have their vote counted.
Individuals and companies are allowed to contribute to campaign funds. All of the information is publicly available. This enables legitimate collection of funds, recognizing the fact that campaigning needs significant funding and providing legitimate and transparent means to organize the same.
Currently there are 3 presidential debates and 1 vice-presidential debate held between the 2 main candidates. The debates allow both the candidates to publicly state their policy, opinions, and how they intend to takes the country forward if elected. The debate format allow their opponent as well as the moderator to challenge as well as seek clarifications on ambiguous statements.
Lessons from India
1. Counting Process
The counting process begins only after the last ballot has been cast. This ensures 2 things. The first is that every person with an intention to vote goes out and votes and that early trends do not influence voters where voting is still in progress. The second is that the final tally is an indicator of the actual will of the complete population and not skewed because of the early trends.
In several places people had to wait for several hours to exercise their franchise. And this has been a perpetual problem in early voting as well as in previous elections. Indian election authorities have fine tuned the art of organizing elections and in spite of having a much larger electorate with a poorer infrastructure manage to conduct it in a manner where the voter normally does not wait for more than 15 - 30 minutes.
Across the country India mainly uses EVM's or Electronic Voting Machines. These reduce the number of controversies. And make the process of counting not only faster but far more reliable. As an example in this years elections it took several days before Florida was able to announce its results of the Presidential Elections. The fact that Obama had won without Floria made this insignificant, else it could be a repeat of 1997 election fiasco, captured brilliantly in the film, "Recount".
In conclusion the systems used by the worlds greatest democracy and the worlds largest democracy are brilliant and admirable. And if each could pick up a few lessons from each other, both would be even more amazing.
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