Booth-Level Booster Shots

Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested using Elections Commissions’ (EC’s) model of delivering polls as a possible template for mass Covid-19 vaccination.

Feasibility of EC’s model in vaccine delivery:

• Inclusive, transparent and accountable provision: The EC conducts elections under Article 324 of Constitution and Representation of the People Act, 1950 and 1951.
• Public Audit:
  • ‘Target beneficiaries’ for elections (900 million) can verify their own entitlements at each crucial stage, as can the contesting candidates.
  • This can be aided by well-publicized schedules and apps developed by EC, yielding actionable information for a post-incident intervention by EC and the judiciary.
• National-level exercise: The expansion of the EC’s staff of 500 to one crore personnel, and to restore the usual size post-poll (in about 90 days), is perhaps the largest such administrative exercise worldwide.
• Effective grievance redressal: Each stage allows interjections and objections, facts and developments which eliminate chances of manipulations and provides widespread legitimacy and ownership.
• Logistics: Moving and accounting for 35 lakh electronic voting machines and voter-verified paper audit trails, and dealing with predictive modelling for malfunction and real-time remedial measures.
• Monitoring and safe storage: The methodical and timely insertion of qualified technical personnel for checking EVMs could be useful administrative elements to the vaccine model.
• Phased Rollout: Precision and accountability of delivery of the machine, material and personnel through reports logged in with EC at each stage can be considered for a reliable vaccination delivery model.
• Covid-containment measures: As learnt from Bihar elections such as – Reimagining the voter-to-polling station ratio by -
  • Expanding of the postal ballot to people with disabilities, voters above 80 and those Covid-infected and bringing a hybrid model of the booth and home voting.

Possible Supplement: There could be lessons for the electoral process from other successful models.

• The model of the census is available to put boots on the ground.
• The polio eradication campaign model is there from the medical domain.
• For physical delivery of goods and commodities, there is the public distribution system (PDS).
• For the movement of inventory (cold chain, in particular), there’s Amul model.

Conclusion: Numerical and geographical targeting will require several models available with health; however, the EC model represents an inclusive and transparent procedure for vaccine delivery.