My Experience - As a polling agent (PA) for LokSatta Party(LSP)!!!

                 

                 I want to share my very good and brave experience as a polling agent(PA). I found there are two good useful and crucial things if any good polling agent presents at the polling station(PS).

1. Validating the person or elector by checking ID card and voter slip number
2. Avoiding Electoral fraud or vote rigging

                I reached by 6:40AM to the polling station, as election staff will give demo about EVM to polling agents to make sure that EVM's working fine. By the time I reached station, they already started Demo, and started conducting demo election and all PA's including me voted for respective parties and checked for the results to make sure that total polled votes and individual votes matched. After completing the demo they cleared all the data in the EVM and sealed the machine under the observation of PA's and made EVM ready for the real elections by 7:00AM.

                 In our PS, Congress, TRS, TDP, YSRCP and LSP(mine) PA's attended. All agents are from same area and they are good friends except me. In these Congress and TRS agents are very experienced ;-). They are doing their job (not PA's job) very nicely. They know who are coming to vote and whom they will vote and confirming voted for correct person or not by giving signals. 

                 As a PA, each one should have list of voters for that PS and election staff will announce each voter's voter number to make sure that voter was right one for that voter number, and agents need to check and confirm that. This one is very useful and we can avoid wrong person to vote. One case we found here, one person voted some where and came to our station to vote for another time, we found the ink mark on his finger and we were not allowed him to vote again.

                 Whole this process of validating the voter details continues until polling time which is 6:00PM. So PA need to stay from morning 6:30AM to evening 6:10PM to make sure that voting happening properly. I stayed whole time from 6:40AM to 6:20PM, other parties has relievers, PA's can go out by placing another person by taking permission from polling officer.

                 It went well till evening 5:00PM. By morning 7AM many voters came and stand in a big queue to vote until 12PM in the afternoon. After that slowly count reduced and there was no polling after 1:00PM. We thought that voter's may come in the evening as it was HOT out side in the afternoon due to summer. Unfortunately there was no polling in the evening in our PS. In PS, there are polling counters, in which our counter has more voters (1586) in that only 762 voters are polled which less than 50% and which was highest %  at our PS counters.

                 Before election day, our LSP Team has given instructions to all PA agents that, between 3:00PM and 6:00PM there is a chance of rigging. LSP team instructed as a PA we should be very careful about that and if there is a chance of rigging please come out of the station and call to police or LSP team. 

                 Here comes the interesting part.  After 5:00PM congress PA went out and called me for chatting. I just went to meet him as we both became friends. He asked me to help for rigging. By that time only 751 votes were polled out of 1586.  Below was the conversation.

PA: I want to talk to you

Me: Regarding what?

PA: Polling was very low, votes will be wasted

Me: What we need to do?

PA: If you co-operate,we will use those votes, everyone was ready except you!!!

Me: No.

PA: Why to waste votes, we if you co-operate, we will use them.

Me: I Said again no and went inside polling counter. and I never look at him ;-)

And it was tense time until polling time completes. If I agree or If I was not there, they might have used around 100 votes among them each by ~25 votes. Due to me, it was not happened. 100 or 50 votes may looks small in single counter, but each Constitution may have around 200 - 400 counters. It matters a lot for Constitution. 

My Suggestions to All:

• Try to attend as a polling agent if you have time or ask your friends or relatives
• Try to vote. if you are not using your vote some other polling agent will use your vote.

Polling agents are very very crucial to make polling in proper way. We are thinking that what is the problem if I wont vote. I have answer for that, Some polling agent will use your vote. Actually you are not only wasting your vote, you are also giving a chance for rigging because if you have not voted,  agent has all the details of who voted , who are not voted,  they will use these details for rigging.

Please go and vote for whom you think, he will work for society. Not vote for whom you like!!!

Thanks!!

Happy Voting