Unsure how to use EVMs? Telangana has a Virtual Reality experience for voters

  The Mahabubnagar district administration is pulling out all the stops to get voters to the polling booth on December 7. While the District Collector Ronald Rose has initiated a ‘virtual reality show’ campaign, the police have set up a cultural wing, which travels to villages and performs skits urging residents to exercise their vote.  According to the District Collector’s office, the virtual reality experience explains the importance of voting and process of how to vote. “The voters get confused with the Electronic Voter Machine (EVM) and there is a chance of people avoiding voting, because they don’t know the technical know-how,” said an official. Virtual Reality is a three-dimensional, computer generated environment, which can be explored and interacted with by a person, states the Virtual Reality Society. District Collector Ronald Rose said that they have been encouraging voting for several years through numerous initiatives as part of SVEEP (Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation) including cultural troupes, Kalajathas, Ads on TV, radio ads and posters which weren’t that ‘effective.’ “With the VR device people can virtually walk into a polling station and experience the polling process and even virtually cast a vote. This is especially useful for first time voters as this ultra-modern campaign medium will remove any apprehensions of first-time voters about how to exercise their franchise,” said District Collector, Ronald Rose. “This is the first time, somebody is using the VR technology for elections,” he added. According to officials, the ‘virtual reality show’ campaign began on November 1, where they deployed VR teams in every mandal of the district who go from village to village, gather people and ask them to experience VR. Officials said that they have trained 30 officials from the Revenue Department for the purpose. Mahabubnagar Joint Collector Venkatrao said nearly 66,000 people have experienced the VR in all the five constituencies of Mahabubnagar district which includes:  Mahbubnagar, Devarakadra, Jadcherla, Makthal and Narayanpet. The department has set a target of giving the VR experience to 2 lakh voters. On the other hand, the police under the direction of SP Rema Rajeshwari have constituted a cultural wing of the department who have written songs and skits encouraging the voters to exercise their vote.  @MBNRpolice Cultural Troupe performing in Kurumurthy JANAPADAM is part of the local folk tradition-a tale circulated by word of mouth. My team uses this as a means to initiate dialogue among communities and to create awareness on #elections #childmarriage #fakenews #roadsafety pic.twitter.com/HeFdZbnw39 — Rema Rajeshwari IPS (@rama_rajeswari) November 22, 2018  Click here to follow TNM's coverage of the Telangana Assembly Elections 2018