The EPC interviewed Aditya Mishra, Aditya Ravichandran Iyer, and Sneha Aggarwal of the Election Commission (EC) to discuss their experience conducting the first online elections in BITS Pilani’s history.

With last year’s elections having been cancelled due to uncertainty regarding campus reopening, the EC believed that the need for student representation was more pressing than ever. Adding to that, the incumbent President and General Secretary were graduating this year and could no longer retain their positions. Hence, it became clear that holding the Students’ Union (SU) elections could not be delayed anymore.  

There were several issues that the EC needed to address, the main one being that of polling. As voter confidentiality was the primary concern, platforms like Google Forms were dismissed for being too risky. The idea of making an independent platform was discussed with the Chief Warden but did not come to fruition. After considering all options, Microsoft Forms was finalised as the polling platform. To ensure secure voting, responses were limited to one person, voter anonymity was maintained, and the polling platform was handled entirely by the Chief Warden and the Associate Dean of the Student Welfare Division (SWD).

Supervising online campaigning was another major concern. After taking input from colleges across the country that had successfully conducted elections online, the EC drafted a framework for online campaigning. Each candidate was allowed a team of five campaigners, whose names, social media handles, and WhatsApp numbers had to be submitted to the EC. On WhatsApp, the candidates and their camps were allowed to have a group that the General Body Members (GBM) could voluntarily join. Candidates could use the group to make public announcements regarding their campaigns. These groups were monitored by the EC. The EC also allowed the official campaigners to campaign with the electorate over WhatsApp, calls, and Instagram.

For campaigning on Instagram, an official EC handle was created, and the EC prescribed a template for the Instagram posts that would be published on their official account. Candidates were also offered the option to submit a five-minute video wherein they could talk about their manifesto in detail and directly communicate with the GBM. The purpose of having an official channel for the EC was to allow for an extra layer of impartiality. The reasoning behind this was that campaigning through the EC’s handle would prevent candidates with a better social media reach from having an unfair advantage over others.

There were frequent cases of violations of the campaigning norms imposed by the EC, leading to the candidates’ campaigning time being curtailed. One of the major violations committed was campaigning on unapproved WhatsApp groups. To investigate these cases, the EC conducted inquiries by reaching out to the people who had campaigned on said WhatsApp groups. These inquiries were mainly based on submissions from the contact form that EC had provided for the GBM to submit complaints and proofs against defaulting candidates. In case of repeated violations, the candidate was questioned to find out if malpractices were involved. 

The 2020 batch, voters and candidates alike, were noticeably more engaged throughout the elections than the other batches. Whether it was due to the SU elections being one of their few chances to participate in student interactions, or because they felt a greater need for representation when compared to the other batches, the EC believed that the interest in student politics had increased. The EC initially received eight nominations from the 2020 batch alone, whereas the senior batches barely had one or two candidates contesting. 

For the batch representative elections, the EC counted a total of 617 votes cast from the 2020 batch, 341 votes from 2019 A, and 144 votes from 2018 A. Clubbing together the voters belonging to 2019 B, 2018 B, 2017, and the higher degree students, a total of 394 votes were counted. The electorate voting for the President and General Secretary, which comprised all batches, reported a voter turnout of 1496. It was suggested by the EC that the traction in a specific electorate was directly proportional to the amount of active candidate participation. More candidates meant more reach, an increased interest in the elections, and consequently a higher voter turnout. 

The EC noted that it was surprising to see that the overall voter turnout for the President and General Secretary elections remained about the same as in offline elections, despite the relative ease of casting a vote online. Whether the underlying issue is a lack of interest in the election process or just a lack of awareness amongst the GBM, it was nonetheless refreshing for the EC to see the 2020 batch’s enthusiastic response to this election season.