Novel way to enhance voter participation in elections

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, March 17

Postcards might have become redundant in this tech-savvy age but they continue to be an effective medium of reaching out to masses. Harnessing its age-old reach, the Deputy Commissioner, Sirmaur, Lalit Jain has mooted a novel way of sending self-signed postcards to the rural households in order to enhance voter participation.

Carrying an appeal on behalf of the Deputy Commissioner the postcard urges all eligible people to enlist themselves as voters if they have attained the age of 18 years on January 1, 2019. It guides a youth to visit the nearest polling booth and contact booth-level officer or the SDM or the office of the District Election Office to enlist oneself as a voter.

The DC, while giving information, said this will help strengthen the democracy as more and more people will be inspired to vote. He said since a majority of the people in the district reside in rural areas this campaign is targeted at reaching out to rural households.

He said the penetration of social media in these rural areas is limited and messages flashed through the social media fail to register effectively in minds of the people while a postcard signed by the DC lends a person touch. The messages flashed on the visual media too could not match the effectiveness of the postcard.

As many as 50,000 such postcards have been printed by the district administration for this campaign which began last week. There are about one lakh households and as per conservative estimates at least 50 per cent are rural. It also carries the message saying that an aware voter is the future of democracy and stresses on 100 per cent voter registration in the district.

Lending a personal touch to this innovative idea, postman will deliver the postcards to the people saying that the DC has sent them a message.

The district had 560 polling stations with 47 being listed as critical and 105 as vulnerable requiring higher level of alertness.

Self-signed postcards

• Deputy Commissioner, Sirmaur, Lalit Jain has mooted a novel way of sending self-signed postcards to the rural households in order to enhance voter participation.
• Carrying an appeal on behalf of the DC, the postcard urges all eligible people to enlist themselves as voters if they have attained the age of 18 years on January 1, 2019.