UP Election Results 2022: Voting is an essential part of any democracy. Citizens participate in the democratic process by voting. In a democracy, the choice of a voter is free, which is ensured by the secret ballot system. Therefore, the secrecy of ballots is an important postulate of constitutional democracy and is referred to in Section 94 of the Representation of the People Act 1951. It gives voters the right to remain anonymous about their vote choice.
Therefore, it is important to know the difference between a vote and a poll.
The main difference between voting and polling is that voting is a formal process of seeking the opinion of people on a particular topic. On the other hand, a poll is an informal process of getting the opinion of many people.
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What is Vote?
A vote refers to a choice for or against someone or something by casting a ballot, raising a hand, speaking about the choice aloud, etc. or we can say that it is a method of deciding something by asking people to express their choice and finding out what most people want.
Who can Vote?
In India, the democratic system is based on the principle of universal adult suffrage. Citizens over the age of 18 can vote in an election (before 1989, the age limit was 21).
The right to vote is irrespective of caste, creed, religion, or gender.
People who are deemed unsound of mind and people convicted of certain criminal offences are not allowed to vote.
What is the electoral roll?
The electoral roll of a constituency is a list of all those people who are registered to vote in elections in that constituency. Only those people are allowed to vote as 'electors' whose names are mentioned in the electoral rolls. Normally, the electoral roll is revised every year to add the names of those who are not less than 18 on a qualifying date years as on the first day of January of that year, who have moved into the constituency, and to remove the names of those who have died or moved out of the constituency. Therefore, electoral roll updation is a continuous process. It is interrupted only at the time of elections, during the period from after the last date of filing nominations till the completion of the elections.
READ| Election Commission of India: Composition, Tenure and Functions
What is a poll?
It is a kind of inquiry or survey which is done to find out the opinion of people about a topic or a range of topics. Polls can be of several types, including exit polls, opinion polls, etc. Generally, they are conducted before an election to predict the votes of people or after the casting of votes. It is said that polls are a great way to predict the result of elections. However, they cannot be blindly trusted and are also not accurate at times.
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Difference between Vote and Poll
| Parameters | Vote | Poll |
| Definition | It is a formal way of knowing the opinion of the public. | It is an informal way of predicting the opinion of the public. |
| How is it conducted? | The Election Commission has undertaken the computerisation of all electoral rolls throughout India. | Various agencies carry out exit polls throughout the method of sampling, and to predict more accurate results, some may also go for systematic sampling. Agencies ask various people of different age groups, genders, castes, religions, and regions whom they voted for. Therefore, polls can be conducted in various ways. |
| How many people are involved? | The entire population that is registered to vote will participate in the election process. | It is conducted informally with a small sample of the population. |
| Accuracy | It leads to improvements in the accuracy and speed with which the electoral roll can be updated. In terms of the election, the vote does not have any margin of error. Therefore, 100% accurate. | There is a margin of error in the poll as it is a prediction based on a population sample. Therefore, the scope of inaccuracy is there. |
| Seriousness among people | People take the vote seriously | Those people who are involved in a poll do not take it as seriously as a vote. |
While concluding, the vote and poll appear similar, but when viewed closely, there are several differences between the two. Voting plays a crucial role in a democracy as it can make or break the results of an election. And on the other hand, when a poll is conducted, it just provides a prediction before and after casting a vote in an election process. It has been seen that in an organisation, to make some important decisions, voting is preferred instead of polling, because people have more thoughts while casting votes than when doing a poll.
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