Vote: Lost In Transition

Just a thought came to my mind while me & some colleagues were discussing about voting done by Indian people who have migrated to different states within India. 

How many are these in number & what is the likely effect in case they vote or not. 

I decided to look for some figures on how many people migrate within India....and the number according to Census for 1991-2001 was 98.3 million (with growth of about 22% in a decade) which if we calculate according to 2009 will roughly be 10% of population. 

Now, Let's presume 10% of these 98.3 million people are eligible to vote, have voter Id cards but are not able to do so due to:

   1. Recently migrated (a person can only register again as a new voter from a new place incase he/she has stayed at new address for 6 months).

   2. Do not have address proof of new place 

   3. Any other reason

 So are there 9.83 million people who may not vote in election ?

I don't have the answer and the accuracy of my rough calculations can be doubted but if we go by the logic that many people migrate to other cities and don’t vote because they cannot or because they are not sure for how long they are there at that place then automatically total number of voters goes down. 

Various initiatives are on right now like the http://www.jaagore.com/ movement which aims to get 1 billion votes and are providing assistance to people for their voter registration process and also by providing other information. 

But can there be possibility whereby I can vote irrespective of the place where I am in India even for limited period. Of course that calls huge amount of administrative problems in keeping a Track of people but if we are aiming for One billion votes I guess we have to look for this section of migrates. 

Thanks

Neeraj 

Note: The above calculations are my own assumption and requires verification from credible sources. 

Source for Migration in India: http://www.azadindia.org/social-issues/migration-in-india.html

 Photo Source: http://pro.corbis.com/