While the first is very exciting, the second is mostly a rehash of things already said. But I must say that the analysis of voter turnout is, often, quite amusing. If one were to flip through the channels, during strategic timeouts, or in between innings, in the IPL, one would be taken in by the confidence of the political party representatives and the election pundits about the implications of the jump in voter turnout this time. It reminds me a lot about the predictions astrologers indulge in at the beginning of each year. If one were to take the union of all the predictions, one would come up with the universe of all possibilities. And, therefore, one will always be right and, hence, we will have a guru for that year. So, every political party representative says that the voter turnout is helping their party. For the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) representative, it is to ensure that it wins. For the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), it is to ensure that the NDA does not win.
There are two types of people in any election: those who vote and those who do not vote. Their proportions change with elections. Some of those who did not vote may have wanted to vote but ended up not doing so for various reasons; others may not have wanted to vote but ended up doing so. While the second is highly unlikely, the first is a small fraction, at best, of all the eligible voters. So, let us talk about those who took deliberate decisions only - people who voted wanted to vote and people who did not were the ones who themselves decided not to vote. Then, the improved voter turnout must be because more people wanted to vote or less people decided to stay away.
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If every election, the same number of voters were eligible, this would be spot on. Unfortunately, this time, the number of eligible voters has increased and it is largely due to a greater number of voters who have become eligible to vote for the first time in their lives. And, therefore, we have no past data from which to infer how many of them routinely want to vote. One way we can form some hypothesis of who they like - which leader or which party - is through their willingness to pour their hearts out on social media. That, too, could be a bit flawed because likings often do not get translated into actions. Everyone loves an ice cream, but does not buy one every time! In other words, to translate likings into a positive vote, one must, first, want to vote and, second, be able to vote. These are two important steps to be satisfied before a liking can be counted as a vote-for.
As an example, consider the Bangalore South constituency. Bangalore is an information technology hub where the average employee is a young employee. In 2009, Bangalore South experienced a 45 per cent turnout, much less than that in other constituencies. This year the turnout is more, 52 per cent, but still way less than that in most other parts of the country. This is a constituency where Nandan Nilekani is a candidate, and is the darling of many of the youth brigade. He is a hard-working, honest man who has proved his credentials in the private sector and, more recently, as a government official. He stands for everything that the youth in social media say they want to see in their leader. And yet it does not seem that they turned out in droves to vote. In other words, if the youth are turning out in large numbers to vote, Bangalore South (being a younger population than the rest of the country) should have registered a much larger jump in voter turnout than the rest of the country. If the youth are more eager to vote, why is it that in a constituency populated by the young, the voter turnout indicators (total and the jump compared to the last elections) are lower than those in the rest of the country?
One obvious reason, of course, could be that those working in Bangalore are voters elsewhere. But then, the seven per cent improvement in voter turnout could be because more people in the group of erstwhile eligible voters decided to vote this time. And then the question is: why did they come out to vote this time? Did they want to make sure that Mr Nilekani wins or to ensure that he does not win?
In other words, if larger voter turnout is because of the youth, we need to be able to better explain the low jump in voter turnout in the Bangalore South constituency. If it is because the erstwhile non-voters have come out in larger numbers, we need to know why. There is nothing in the public domain that enables us to infer anything. But then, it is so much better to hold our breath till May 16. Life is no fun if you know what will happen.