The Polling Station

It was evident that for voters their experience of the process of casting their vote itself was a very important one in determining their enthusiasm for voting. The journey to the polling station, the way in which queues were managed, how polling officials treated the voters, the accessibility of the voting process, and the simplicity of the procedure were all important factors in encouraging people to engage with the electoral process. ¹ It was on this day, more than any other, when people felt special and empowered as the most important actors on the political stage of the country, when they engaged with the state to give something rather than to receive. Voters everywhere seemed to be aware of the gravity of this right and their role and responsibility in discharging this duty properly. But for many of India’s illiterate and poor voters, the journey to the polling station could also be intimidating because of its formality of procedure, the encounter with officials and the exposure it brought. The need to look presentable, to conduct themselves with dignity in front of the officials and other voters and not to make mistakes while voting were all worries that preyed on the minds of people. For middle-class voters, Election Day was perhaps the only time they ever entered a government school building and came into contact with members of the lower classes in their own neighbourhood with whom they would otherwise seldom mingle. From the point of view of the millions of officials who conducted the elections across the country, this day was one of reckoning, the culmination of many weeks of planning, training and hard work. It was their performance on this day that would be the ultimate test of their own abilities as well as the country’s record for holding free and fair elections, which was so essential to its global reputation as a democracy. Officials felt this burden of responsibility acutely, and approached it with a mixture of excitement and adrenaline as before a big sporting event. For candidates, political parties and their workers, Election Day was a one full of nervousness and frustration. After months of relentless campaign-related work, Election Day brought with it a reprieve, when they had to restrict themselves to doing only a few circumscribed tasks such as encouraging voters to visit the polling station and manning the desks outside the booths but keeping a low profile in order to avoid attracting any unfavourable attention from keen-eyed and vigilant election observers in their area. Those with transport, therefore, often spent the day visiting various polling stations exchanging news and guesstimates on their mobile phones with other workers. And so, on Election Day the polling station itself became an important site where the voter, political parties and the state of India came together in conducting the business of democracy. Such a confluence of actors was rare in normal life and unsurprisingly created a culture and mood of its own. It is for this reason that we identified exploring the ‘culture of the polling station’ as one of our principal research questions to collect fine-grained data on Election Day.