Innovations in Election Management – a primer for m-governance

M.SelvendranDEO & District Collector,Katni, Madhya Pradesh

What is mobile governance

• “...is the use of the mobile phone as a platform for the delivery of citizen services. It may include the delivery of g2g and g2c services.”

• High mobile penetration in IndiaMobile phone users : 617.53 millionInternet users : 81 million

• Exhaustive network coverage of mobile telephony

Process map

Server hosting software application

Mobile phone

Telephone network

Telephone network

m-governance in election management

• Communication with personnel involved in election work

• Collection of information related to conduction of mock poll and polling percentage

Communication with personnel involved in election work

• “one to many” sms technology was used to communicate orders etc to the personnel

sms sent from a server to many mobile phones

Communication with personnel involved in election work

• As many as 6000 personnel engaged in election related work

• BLO’s– Notice of meetings, camps for photography,

important instructions etc

• Polling staff– Communication of details of polling station and

time of departure to polling stations

Collection of information related to conduction of mock poll and polling percentage

“many to one” sms technology was used

sms sent to a server from many mobile phones

Server processes data

Information is displayed on a dynamic webpage

Mock Poll

• ECI requires conduction of mock poll prior to start of polling

• Collection and transmission of information on conduct of mock poll to ECI prior to start of polling

• Involves collection of information on mock poll status by booth level personnel and its transmission to ECI through the zonal officers, RO, DEO and CEO of the State.

• ECI had permitted limited use of mobile phone by the polling officer in the booth.

Process of transmitting information

• SMS templatePAMP 60 23 YES 3

PAMP : code for mock poll60 : Assembly Segment Code23 : Polling Booth CodeYES : Status of Mock Poll3 : No of Polling agents present

• Each data field was separated by a single space

Conduction of mock poll

Supplementing of missing Information by its collectiontelephonically - Communication team

Transmission of information to State CEO

Sms sent by polling officer

Server processes the data Information displayed

on a dynamic webpage

Information to zonal officer of mock poll status

Zonal officer visits Problem booths Zonal officer informs

of action taken via telephone

Polling percentage

• SMS sent by PO’s at regular intervals of two hours 9.00, 11.00, 1.00, 3.00 and 5.00 pm

• SMS templatePAPP 1 60 23 102 89

PAPP : code for poll percentage1 : Time of reporting (1.00 pm)60 : Assembly Segment Code23 : Polling Booth Code102 : cumulative no of male votes polled89 : cumulative no of female votes polled

• Information displayed on a webpage in the form of a grid

Compilation of polling percentage information

Supplementing of missing Information by its collectiontelephonically - Communication team

Transmission of information to State CEO

Sms sent by polling officer

Server processes the data Information displayed

on a dynamic webpage

Information to zonal officer of Poll percentage status

Zonal officer visits Problem booths Zonal officer informs

of action taken via telephone

Efficiency in information collection

Accuracy of information

Cost Analysis

• Vendor selected through competitive bidding• Total cost incurred was approximately

Rs. 15,000– Cost per sms (sent/received) : Rs 0.70– Cost per keyword : Rs 5000

Difficulties faced

• Lack of knowledge in using sms feature among polling personnel

• Reporting via sms was not made mandatory• Network congestion and communication

shadows

Conclusions

• Workload on the communication team was reduced to a large extent

• The initiative can be considered to be a successful technology demonstrator

Suggestions

• Can be easily scaled up to the state or national level• One of the members of the polling party may be

trained and reporting made mandatory• Can be converted into a poll day MIS– No. of non-epic voters, missing votes etc casting votes– Trend analysis and corrective measures/ inspections etc

can be attempted

• Information of Polling percentage and mock poll conduction can be made available on the public domain

Thank You