Where Do I Vote?

In Nassau County where my wife and I are registered voters, we always get a postcard reminding us what districts we live in and where we can go to vote. I don't know if there a similar system in place in India, but people know when and where to vote, even if you live on an island of 90 people in the Arabian Sea, in the Gulf of Kutch, that boasts no schools, no medical facilities, few toilets, and spotty cell phone service, Ayad Island off the Western Coast of Gujarat in southern India. As usual, The Wall Street Journal's A-Hed piece delivers to us one of those wonderful rare global facts.

Here in the states, we go to the polls. In certain parts of India where the population lives remotely—to say the least—the polls come to them. In Ajad Island's case the poll workers arrive by boat to allow the 40 registered voters from a population of 90 to cast their vote in elections.

Aside from the A-Hed, there is a delightful YouTube video of what is known as Mid Sea Voting. The fingers these people are displaying are marked as having voted.

Notice the rifle a poll worker is carrying. Snakes are often encountered. Poll workers sleep overnight on the island in tents, and some choose to sleep on a roof rather than lay on the ground because of the snakes.

The WSJ reporters Shan Li and Rajesh Roy, tell us in the informative A-Hed piece that in India the are 5.5 million voting machines for one billion voters, in what is the world's largest election by votes cast. And by law, each voter must have a polling station within 1.2 kilometers of their home. Ajad Island sits 33 km. offshore from Salaya Port, so in order to comply with its own laws, India has to have the polling station come to them, even if it's only for 40 voters.

The upshot of this obligation to provide a means to vote for all means there are millions of people who are enlisted as election workers to deliver voting machines for polling dates that run from April 19 to June 1. This means gaining access to tiny islands as well as to remote villages in the Himalayas. Imagine mountain climbing as a requirement to be an election worker.

To me, the only romantic thing about Ajad Island where  people raise goats and chickens is when the election workers come. "We live a lonely life." says a 35-year-old woman, Fatima Sanghar. I'd agree.

But traditions are hard to break. Even a 22-year-old fisherman who moved to the mainland arrives by boat as well to vote where he was born. Saddam Ali tells the reporters, "it is our duty to cast a vote even if it inconvenient."

I guess he's not getting in touch with the India Board of Elections and changing his address.

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