Children carry EC message on pledge to vote

The pledge letters are given to the children,who get their parents to sign them. The children take the pledge letters back to school. They are then sent back the EC. Based on the mobile phone details on the letters,the EC will,on the day of voting,SMS the parents to remind them to go and vote.

Officials at the Delhi EC said that children had been chosen as their medium to ensure maximum voter turnout because they could present an emotional appeal to their parents to “vote for democracy”.

“While information dissemination,motivation and facilitation are three important aspects of increasing electoral participation,we have to ensure that first the maximum number of people register themselves as voters,then the maximum number of people turn out to vote,and that they vote ethically,” Delhi chief electoral officer Vijay Dev told Newsline.

Giving pledge letters to school children to be signed by their parents is one step in that direction,and “we are also trying to counter urban apathy in as many ways as possible”,Dev said.

For this exercise,district commissioners will distribute the pre-formatted pledge letters to children in all government and private schools in their respective districts. Apart from signing the pledge to vote,the parents will also fill out details such as mobile numbers on the letter. The signed letters will then be routed back to the CEO’s office.

“We also plan to send reminder SMS on the polling day to the mobile numbers that the parents have provided,reminding them of the pledge they took. We plan to tap a lot of votes this way that are otherwise lost due to urban apathy,” Dev said.