Lost in Bihar

Imagine you are listing all your classmates, but some names will be deleted incorrectly. Now you need to check everyone’s ID card to make sure the list is correct. This is what happened in Bihar before the national election.

The Supreme Court said people could use Aadhaar (National ID) to prove they belong to the voter list. question? Aadhaar is not perfect, sometimes it has errors, and the company that helped build it has not been properly checked. However, since it can be used everywhere (from getting a SIM card to a gas connection) becomes very important.

Most importantly, the polling stations (where people vote) were reorganized. Now, no more than 1,200 voters can be voted at each booth. As a result, the number of stalls increased from about 77,000 to nearly 1,00,000! This means new numbers, new employees and a lot of chaos. The responsible officials (called BLOS) have only 15 days to clean up documents from previous officials.

Even if voters’ names are stored digitally, many documents are still carried out in paper form. With all the reflow and change, things get messy. Some fear Aadhaar might even let fake voters go, while others say that without Aadhaar, real voters might be excluded.

A big lesson? Technology and quick fixes don’t solve everything. If there is not enough time to double-check the voter list, the whole process can turn into a huge mess, such as losing counts in math tests.

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