Fwd: Voter Registration can be easy

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Suresh E <suresh.e@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 8:59 AM
Subject: Voter Registration can be easy
To: birdsofsamefeathers@googlegroups.com

Dear Birds,

The fact that voting percentage over the past decades have been on a steep decline should come as no surprise to us. And one common reason that we hear or might have experienced is that when one goes to exercise one's basic right, their name is often missing from the voters list and hence don't get to vote. 

This not only discourages that one voter, but potentially his circle of friends & family. The voter might loose faith in the system for ever. 

Thanks to efforts of http://www.smartvote.in/ and other similar activities, the Chief Election Commissioner of India had send directives to all the CEO's (Chief Electoral Officers) of all the states that the following can be done to help bulk registrations of the voters and each CEO is required to help facilitate the same. This was done in an effort to increase access to voter registrations and encourage it.

• Residential Welfare Associations i.e. Colony Associations: Are authorized to do collect voter registration forms in bulk and hand it over to the nearest registration officer
• Bulk registrations @ college: Should the local registration officer agree to be in person at a college/university, then the officer can do bulk registrations in the campus
• Booth Level Volunteer: Polling booths can also have booth level volunteers. The volunteers are also authorized to help with bulk registrations (Information regarding districts --> constituencies --> polling booths is available online : PollingStation)

Easy to verify the voter information: Search Voter

However, please bear in mind that, since these are government agencies, things are always not as straight forward as they seem. So there needs to be some personal rapport built with the respective registration officers or the district election officers or even the chief electoral officer to help with registrations using any of the above methods. 

Please email me if you are interested in building a team to work on voter registrations.