Key Points
While political parties harp on their vote banks, a baseline survey commissioned by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for Karnataka indicates that political party sympathy is a minor motivating factor for voters to participate in elections...
A team of researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), led by S. Madheswaran, professor and head of the Centre for Economic Studies and Policy at ISEC, surveyed 4,452 people from 45 Assembly constituencies spread over 23 districts...
Among senior citizens (respondents aged 61 years and above), voting as a right/duty (84.2%), followed by the choice of a good candidate (55.3%) were the two primary reasons to participate in the election process, the survey shows..
On the other hand, casting a vote due to threat or coercion (0.5%) and being influenced by a free offer of money or liquor, were the least likely reasons for this group of respondents to obstruct their voting participation, as per the survey...
B.P. Vani, associate professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Policy, ISEC, who is the co-author of the survey, said that young voters in the 18 to 25 years cohort seemed to give relatively less importance to casting their vote..
