JAAGO RE and SMARTVOTE: A comprehensive study

Abstract

India is one of the biggest democracies in the world. The people in India elect their representatives to put forth their problems in front of the government. Hence, it is very important for the citizens to be aware of the candidate they are voting for and need to be absolutely sure that he/she is the right representative for them. Sadly, this is not the case in India. Citizens are under the influence of many factors, most are not aware of the profiles of the candidates, the voters list has countless errors and the voters are unaware of ward elections. The rural population takes more interest in the voting process as this is the only hope to better their lifestyles while the educated middle class which could rise to be a huge influence for a fair election process are apathetic towards it. These are some of the glaring problems of our democracy. There are many organizations now trying to better the situation of our country by taking up the aforesaid issues targeting the educated Indians. Most of these organizations have intense online and offline campaigns aimed at bringing the educated middle class into the election process by creating awareness. SmartVote is one such organization and the case developed looks at SmartVote’s initiatives, the success of the campaigns and the way forward for the initiative.