7-member Namibian team takes lessons in democracy from Indian polls
A seven-member delegation from the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) visited Bangalore, state capital of the south Indian state of Karnataka, to catch the poll action on April 17, the largest single day of voting in the five-week national election, a statement by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said Tuesday.
The visit from the southern African nation was organized as part of a partnership between UNDP and the Election Commission of India to further south-south cooperation on electoral management.
"We wanted to witness the parliamentary elections here, particularly the use of the Electronic Voter Machines (EVMs) for free and fair elections. The idea is to learn from India's incredible experience in generating awareness on the use of EVMs.
"Namibia goes to the polls in November 2014 and we will be deploying EVMs for the first time. EVMs would help save paper, reduce corruption, and make the electoral process more simple and efficient. Meanwhile, we are waiting for suitable amendments in the law to usher in electronic voting," Professor Paul John Isaak, director and chief executive officer of the Electoral Commission of Namibia said.
Recently, a 30-member delegation from 19 countries, including many from Africa, visited some polling stations in the national capital Delhi to observe the Indian democracy at work. The delegation included senior election officials from Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and a few other developing countries.
India is holding the world's biggest exercise in democracy to elect 543 members of its parliament. This election is a 10-phase exercise that has few parallels in the world. Almost 11 million staff - teachers and government officials drafted for the purpose - will conduct the staggered polls at some 930,000 centres all over the country, equipped with electronic voting machines.
Namibia has purchased 1,700 EVMs and has ordered 3,400 more from Indian manufacturer Bharat Electronics Limited. In 2013, Namibia had sent a few members from its Information Technology team to familiarize themselves with the functioning of EVMs. The ECN also expressed interest in sending a delegation to understand the vote counting process, including the software used at results centres during the announcement of results.
"There are differences. For instance, we do not have the 'None of the Above' (NOTA) option and our EVMs have been customized to allow voters to correct their entries in case of a mistake," Nicodemus Mingelius from the ECN's IT team said.
For the Namibian delegation, the high point of voting day was their interaction with the transgender voters of the Hebbal Dasarahalli area in the Bangalore north parliamentary constituency.
The Election Commission has included transgender persons in the 'other' category for voter identity cards, thereby providing them with a separate identity. The Supreme Court of India only recently recognized this category as the third gender.
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