EC eyes 100% enrollment via Twitter

At least one per cent of youth have not got themselves enrolled in the voters list despite attaining the voting age and to capture their attention and others who have been left out of the rolls, the Election Commission has embarked upon an online media campaign from Pongal festival. 

The campaign across Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus aims to bring in new voters and make the existing voters check if their names are on the rolls, Mr Lakhoni said.

“Since most youngsters use the social media extensively and are on Twitter and Facebook, we thought we could reach out to them this way. Also Tamil Nadu is a leader in the IT sector. If icons retweet our tweets, it would mean more people are seeing our tweets,’’ the Chief Electoral Officer said. It was also an effort to achieve 100 per cent registration and voting. 

Tagging this goal to the hashtag 100%TN, Lakhoni has resorted to creative ways of attracting people through his Twitter handle. 

These tweets carry the message that being “patriotic or social” does not mean sending useless forwards but conveying something useful for the people. 

Lakhoni’s tweet on January 16, titled ‘How easy is it to register your name in the electoral rolls?’, has an image showing the process of making the dish “Pongal” and registering in the voters list, supported by a cartoon. It concludes by saying that registering for a vote is easier than making “pongal.” 

The tweet further advised people saying, “Don’t be like that person, instead, do something different like asking people to SMS EPIC to 1950 to verify voter registration details.” 

The Election Commission has surely gone the extra mile to attain its goal of getting everybody to vote this election.