Thursday, November 13, 2008

Website To Empower Voters Launched - Nov 13, 2008

A website was launched by the former Chief Election Commissioner of India, J. M. Lyngdoh, here on Nov 12, to empower citizens and civil society groups with information about contestants and constituencies to help voters make an informed choice in the elections.

The unique website www.EmpoweringIndia.org created by Delhi-based think Tank Liberty Institute digitized data related to 45,000 candidates who contested in Parliament and Assembly elections in the last five years.

The effort was to present the information including assets declared by candidates in their affidavits, criminal background if any, in a user-friendly manner so that people could analyse and compare the data available and draw their own inferences, said Institute Director Barun Mitra.

For instance, the website threw up information that a former Chief Minister of Karnataka, had declared financial assets worth Rs.4 crore in 2004 elections and Rs. 39 crore in 2008. Similarly, data showed that 102 out of 254 ML As in Bihar faced criminal charges. State Chief Electoral Officer I. V. Subbarao said efforts were on to demystify voter registration process.

Besides providing drop boxes in popular places to enable citizens drop voter enrolment Form 6, voters could soon enroll their names in the voters'' list by submitting forms in 216 post offices spread across Greater Hyderabad.

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