<i>Suggestions for EC</i>
The forthcoming general election in Bangladesh is going to be a free and fair election mainly due to the use of a voter-list with photograph and photo ID for all voters. The Election Commission and the administration concerned with holding of the election have also significantly changed. However, I would like to draw the attention of the Election Commission to the election procedures, materials and tools. Ballot Box: Use of transparent ballot box will definitely increase the transparency and fairness of the election. If the commission decides to introduce transparent ballot box, I would suggest to fabricate those boxes in big sizes at least four times the present size; better if the length, width and height are doubled. The present olive colour small-size boxes are very good for playing magical hide and seek to influence results. It is very easy to hide them, replace them and so on. Ballot Paper: Election centres where rigging takes place are often characterized by high rate of voting. At present, such high rate of voting ( as well as the suspicion of rigging) becomes evident only after the counting. To keep track of the high rate voting centres during voting, I suggest use of colour ballot paper. Half the ballot papers in a centre will be of ordinary white colour; one fourth will be printed in light yellow and the rest one fourth in light red paper. Whenever a centre runs out of white ballot papers, it will start issuing yellow paper and will report it to the higher administration so that they can arrange some sort of monitoring and vigilance. The red ballots will not be issued until a more responsible official reaches the centre. Polling Booth: the EC may think about cutting down the cost of polling booths by using paper-made voting screen on table. I was impressed by seeing use of such hoods in the last election in Canada. (It reminded me of “Juta Aabishkar” of Rabindranath). These hoods are made of paper boards, can be easily unfolded and fixed on polling table with adhesive tapes; the voter can hide the ballot behind it. I found that unlike other government offices the EC cares for their website and keep it updated. They can make effective use of the site to publish the results instantaneously during counting. They can make the results available in detail. This will prevent election engineering at district level or at EC and people will be able to tally the results. Usually, local agents who attend the counting receive a copy of local count results. But it is difficult to make sure whether these results are used to calculate the results or the result is engineered at EC or DC office.
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