Kerala Elections: Technology wins hands down

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The superstitious aura of the number 13, the perplexing contrasts of post-poll surveys and finally a photo finish to draw the curtains down. The Assembly election was probably one of the best thrillers that Kerala has seen in recent times.

And one of the trends that helped make the show a success was the use of latest technology on the poll front - both for the conduct and campaign of elections.

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer, which pulled all the strings for the smooth conduct of the elections, banked on numerous e-facilities this time.

From the SMS facility to verifying the voters’ list to the live web-casting of voting from 97 sensitive polling booths in the state, it added a touch of sophistication to the Assembly elections.

The Election Department had set in place  facilities to register the names in voters’ list apart from the SMS facility to verify the polling booth which replaced voting slips in a big  and meticulous way. It also introduced photo-pasted voters’ slip which brought down bogus votes in huge numbers.

The SMS facility to monitor the progress of voting, based on a 37-SMS monitoring system, right from the mock polling to the actual polling was a huge hit.

While earlier the voting percentage could be reached only in the midnight hours or the next day, the facility enabled the department, the media and the public to know the polling percentage within one hour of the end of voting on April 13.

The webcasting, which was done for the first time, was watched by more than two lakh netizens across 44 countries.

As always, the Trend Software by NIC made the following of counting procedures on May 13 an easy job. On the campaign front, it was probably the first time that new media was put to such a big use.

Many candidates, cutting across party lines logged on to social networking sites, launched their websites and made their presence felt online to woo voters.

Though it did not help veterans like Sebastian Paul or George Mercier to secure a win, for young brigades like Shafi Parambil, V T Balram and Hibi Eden, it seemed to have clicked.

Thomas Isaac, who had a huge fan following in Facebook, ensured it offline too.

The UDF lone woman candidate who made it to the Assembly P K Jayalakshmi was also a tech-savvy candidate. However, for Suja Susan George and Lathika Subhash the e-savvy face did little wonders when they played their scapegoat roles neatly in Puthupally and Malampuzha respectively.  

CPM’s A  A Rahim who had made good use of FB and used it as a campaign tool in Thiruvananthapuram also failed to make it to the Assembly.