Many a times, there are a few anti-social elements of our society who wish to distort the whole idea of free and fair elections and hence do whatever they can to influence the results of voting by the decent and determined citizens who just wish to vote and elect their choice of candidate. From just the sound of this fact, it is easy to absorb that how would such a situation bring shame to the system and more importantly kill the whole idea of a democracy, where those in power are elected by the decision of a majority of people.

Looking at such situation, we now have a rough idea about the fact that whenever there are elections in UP or any other state, there are evil happenings like bogus voting, votes for cash, forceful/threatened voting, booth capture, forged Voter ID Cards and many such similar wrongdoings which bias the results of voting, the chosen candidate emerged after the implementation of such election influencing techniques adopted by the anti social elements would not therefore reflect the type of candidate that the citizens would actually want to be governed by.

People get their voter id cards in UP and all the other states with an aspiration of voting for the right candidate whenever there are elections. For this they register their names in the voters’ lists and fill various voter id card online or offline forms in order to ensure their entry to polling booth. This practice is of utmost priority in the lives of all the ordinary citizens who wish to participate in the democracy and therefore any kind of obstruction to the normal way of conduction of elections would distort the results in wrong direction and hence leave the voters and the nation worse off.

Forged Voter ID Cards in UP and other states

One of the most concerning problems related to the conduction of free and fair elections is the use of forged Voter ID Cards in UP and other states. These fake election cards let the anti-socials cast bogus votes and hence distort the election results in favour an unworthy candidate for whom these anti socials are possibly hired. It is more or less obvious that the election of such a candidate, done by unfair means, would do more harm than good to the constituency. If such a practice is widespread and no steps are taken to control it, such a forgery would further deteriorate the structure of our democracy whose fate is already in jeopardy by the charges of corruption, scams and black money.

The reason because of which the Voter ID Card UP and other states is prone to forgery is that the build quality of a typical Voter ID Card in India is not upto the mark. Our EPIC’s are simply laminated paper cards with the information completely visible to naked eye. Therefore it is a piece of cake for the forgers to duplicate a document with dimensions and structure like that of our Voter ID Cards.

The Solution that our Election Commission has come up with

The ECI is very well aware of these situations and hence it would be wrong of us to think that there would not be any solution from the commission’s end. The ECI has launched the Voter ID Cards made up of plastic.

The first state to receive these EPIC’s made up of PVC is Tripura. The distribution of Plastic Voter ID Cards has already started in this state with Uttar Pradesh being the next destination. Once the ECI concludes with the distribution in Tripura, the voter of UP would be the next to receive Voter ID Cards made up of PVC.

The plastic Voter ID Cards in UP would be less prone to forgery because of the fact that the information on these would be coded in a special and secure way. Therefore in this case the build quality and the information structuring problems of the laminated paper EPIC’s would be taken care of in these plastic election cards. The Logos of the issuing agency and the information about the voter on these Voter ID Cards would be visible only in UltraViolet light and therefore making them impossible to be forged. This would also ensure easy differentiation between original and fake(if they exist) election cards.

If the distribution of these new plastic Voter ID Cards is soon made a nationwide phenomena rather than being confined to UP and Tripura, then this would surely be a boon for the electoral system of India as the elections would be a step closer to being free and fair, therefore improving the quality of governance many folds.

In Tripura these plastic Voter ID Cards are being issued through Common Service centers of the Govt. IT department whereas about the distribution of plastic Voter ID Cards in UP, the citizens shall be enlightened by the commission through appropriate means as and when the process initiates, the same is expected soon.