SMS based Voter Turnout implemented during the Lok Sabha Elections in 02- South Goa Parliamentary Constituency

No. of Assembly Segments: 20 No. of Polling Stations: 660 No. of critical Polling Stations: 29 No. of vulnerable Polling Stations: 84 No. of untoward incidents registered: Nil No. of major incidents registered: Nil 02- South Goa Parliamentary Constituency

SMS - Modus operandi 1. BLO’s shall sent SMS to the SMS Gateway No. after every Time Slot of 9, 11, 13, 15 & 17 Hours. Format of SMS AC No (space) PS NO (space) Male Voters (space) Female Voters (space) Total Voters (space) Time Slot Eg At the Gateway Application SMS Slot for 9 Hrs. will be open exactly at 9 Hrs. and starts receives the SMS and the SMS will be converted to data and directly stored in the database for further compilation.

SMS - Modus operandi Contd. 2. All correct SMS will be acknowledged back to the sender by the SMS Gateway Appln. using another SMS Modem. Any incorrect SMS, is not as per the format, shall be sent with the specific error message to the sender asking for correct SMS. 3. The subsequent time slot SMS any if received before shall be accepted with acknowledge SMS to the sender. But the same shall be converted into database after the time slot opened. NOTE: Two modems were used one to receive SMS and second to send SMS. SMS are accepted from the BLO’s No. only, SMS No are verified against the recorded BLO No. in the Gateway appln. Any SMS received from third party is ignored.

Training & Software Development NIC, Goa Unit has developed the Software (SMS Gateway application) and imparted the training to all BLOs. 90% BLOs have there own mobile sets. 10% BLOs provided with the rented mobile sets Three trail runs were conducted from the Polling stations before the poll day.

Hardware / Software GSM Samba USB Modem – 2 Nos Pentium based client PC Software platform –Client Appln. using Visual Basic. –SQL Server –Segate Crystal reports for MIS reports.

Expenditure An amount of about Rs. 70,000 has been spent. Inclusive of Rs per modem. Each BLO’s also paid Rs. 75 as incentives.

SMS based Voters turn out - Results No. of BLOs appointed: 660 No. of Mobiles used: 660 Total No. of SMS received from BLOs: 3321 Total No. of correct SMS received: 2908 % of Correct SMS received: 88% No. of SMS sent by the DEO office: 4114

Frequency of messages sent by the BLOs TimeNo. of SMS AM AM PM PM PM848 Total 2908 Incomplete SMS413 Grand Total 3321

Frequency of SMSs No. of SMS received on poll-day during MorningEvening TimeNo after Total for 9Hrs Hrs 575

SMS - Shortfall 86% of BLOs sent correct messages Reset 14% of the BLOs are unable to sent due to various reasons, majority is due to shadow area of mobile signals. Few BLO are not able to compose SMS. For such PS for shortfall of SMS, the traditional way is adopted to record voter turnout.

Conclusion The results with SMS based voter turnout is very impressive. The hourly voter turnout shall be compiled with accuracy and close to the actual & exact % within 20 minutes of the close of the respective time slot. The future direction would be achieving 100% SMS based voter turnout and with additional Gateway, we can expect to get results in less than 10 minutes.