Tracking the elections
From Governance Wiki
Elections to the Lok Sabha happened in India in April and May 2009. The data of various candidates could be obtained from the Election Commission of India's website. In order to track the elections and upload candidate and constituency information onto this wiki, we accessed this website and regularly downloaded the CandidateAC file from there.
- The first file was containing the list of candidates was obtained on 16th April 2009 from the Election Commission of India and was subsequently used to upload information onto wiki pages. You can download this version of the file from here. It is named: CandidateAC.xls Since the election was conducted in phases additional information had to be uploaded as it became available. On the 24th April 2009 we obtained an updated version of this file from the second list became available and the wiki pages were uploaded. You can obtain a copy of this file from here. It is named: CandidateAC-1.xls
- From the 6th of May, before the counting began or polling was complete, through the 15th of May the candidate information was incomprehensible as along with with the votes polled data for all the candidates it appeared in “coded form” (You can download the various versions of the file under sequential names at the following locations: 6th May: CandidateAC-2.xls, CandidateAC-3.xls, 7th May: CandidateAC-4.xls,11th May: Candidate AC-5.xls, 15th May: CandidateAC-6.xls).
- The information available on 16th May, CandidateAC-7.xls, is not yet uploaded onto the wiki as votes polled data is not available to date (19th May 2009: CandidateAC-8.xls and 20th May: CandidateAC-9.xls.
This effort has resulted in several questions about the data and information systems of the Election Commission of India. Several people have reviewed this exercise and it has resulted in a case for technology reform of the entire Election Process.
Dr. Anupam Saraph with advice from Prof Madhav Nalapat
