37% UT voters not aware of NOTA option in EVM: Survey

Dushyant Singh Pundir
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 26

Believe it or not, over 37 per cent of the voters in the city were not aware of NOTA during the parliamentary elections held in 2019, while 42.6 per cent of people didn’t have any knowledge about VVPAT. A majority of the people called for making voting compulsory.

Aamir Khan favourite campaigner

Out of the sample electorates, who had seen Election Commission of India advertisement or campaign, actor Aamir Khan was the most motivating as reported by 36.2 per cent of the sample followed by cricketer MS Dhoni (33.5 per cent), actor Ayushmann Khurrana (32 per cent), Saina Nehwal (22.2 per cent) and Mary Kom (22.6 per cent).

This was revealed in a survey conducted by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) on behalf of the Election Department, UT.

The main objective of the study is to understand the takeaways of the campaigns for voter awareness and education and understand the extent and level of participation of voters in the election processes in the recently concluded Lok Sabha poll, 2019.

Most revealed tagline for campaign

As far as recalling the tagline for the campaign during those elections, the survey revealed that the UT electorates have limited knowledge. The most revealed tagline was “Koi Matdata Na Chootey” for 35.1 per cent of the sample followed by “Desh ka Mahatoyhar” (28.1 per cent) and “Go Register, Go Verify or Go Vote” (15 per cent).

The present study is based on a sample of 1,000 individual electors in Chandigarh. Out of this, 150 were from the rural areas, 250 from rehabilitated colonies and the remaining 600 were from the urban areas. The field survey for the study was carried out during June under the supervision of Associate Professor Sunil Bansal and Assistant Professor Madan Mohan Singh of the CRRID.

A majority of the sample electorates (93.3 per cent) reported to cast their vote in the last General (parliamentary) elections. More than half (54.5 per cent) of the voters got to know about the NOTA option while casting their vote, another 7.6 per cent told that they had read about it. Only 0.7 per cent of the sample revealed that they came to know about it during the election literacy programme. The remaining 37.2 per cent of the electorates did not know about this option.

Nearly half (49.3 per cent) of the sample electorates reported to saw VVPAT while casting their votes and 42.6 per cent of the voters did not have any knowledge about it.

Opinion on making voting compulsory

About half of the electorates (48.4 per cent) in the city agree with the statement “voting should be made compulsory” and another 45.3 per cent strongly agree with this statement. Nearly half (48.4 per cent) of the sample electorates agree with the statement “elections are conducted freely and fairly in India” and another 17.3 per cent expressed “strongly agree” with this statement.

More than one third (38.3 per cent) of the electorates agree with the statement “EVM provided accurate results” and another 27.9 per cent strongly agree with it.

One-third (33.3 per cent) of the electorates “agree” with the statement “influence of money and muscle is increasing in elections”, while another 10.8 per cent “strongly agree” with it.