SANA an initiative for #CleanElections #PowerofVote

Guwahati, March 8, 2019:

Social Action for New Alternatives (SANA) is an initiative, to promote “clean elections” in India has been launched to address the need for electoral reforms in India, in particular in states that are inhabited by a large indigenous population and who are generally isolated from the development process.

With an eye on the ensuing Lok Sabha, SANA is launching the ‘Clean and Inclusive Elections Campaign’ (#CleanElections & #PowerofVote) in all of the northeastern states and later after the polls, gradually expand to other states in India.

The essence of the campaign is to keep an eye on the elections and document every aspect of the process independently. A total of 200 volunteers will be trained to document the process which will involve extensive interviews with all stakeholders, constituency visits, tracking election-related complaints, electoral violence mapping, sampling voters’ concern’s and watching the conduct of election on the election day and after. A complete report on the election will be prepared and circulated to all stakeholders soon after the elections.

The focus of the campaign is also to reach out to the voters, especially those that are marginalized, located in remote parts of the region, those that are left out of the process including urban voters and try to ensure that they are able to vote and vote freely without any fear or intimidation from any individual, group etc.

To do this SANA will establish a network with local civil society groups, community-based organisations and local media and engage voters and document their stories. It will use both traditional communications tools and social media to do our voter outreach. This is done to ensure that SANA is able to listen to the voters, to find out if they are well-informed if they feel safe and are not voting under duress or influenced by any individual or group. The idea is to ensure that the voters’ right to cast their franchise is not violated in any way. Any forms of violations our volunteers come across shall be documented and reported to the authorities concerned.

Also, it wants to ensure that the members of SANA are able to lend our support to the campaign that has been started by different organizations on “Lost Votes.”

The true essence of a credible electoral process is when everyone eligible to vote is provided with the opportunity to do so. No one should be left out. But in our system of voting, lots of voters are left out and they constitute about one-third of the total voting population in India which is close to 900 million eligible voters. It is estimated that about 280 million Indians did not vote in 2014.

Internal migrants—government employees, workers, labourers, students and domestic helpers that come to work in the cities from far off remote locales, or simply people that live in a different city. The reason for such a large number of people that are not able to vote is because the electoral legal framework that guides the Indian election follows the Principle of Residence.

Highlights of the Clean Election Campaign

• Citizen’s Election Watch
• Election Campaign and hate speech monitoring
• Monitoring vote buying and influencing voters with money and gifts
• Electoral violence mapping
• Campaign for including ‘Left Out Voters’ and the primary causes that leads to disenfranchisement
• Encouraging first-time voters to vote and participate in the elections
• Voter education and awareness at and village and district level
• Handholding support to local organisations/grassroots organisations and the student community