A recent survey commissioned by the office of Bihar’s chief electoral officer (CEO) reveals that almost 80% people feel taking money or gifts to vote for someone is not wrong. This survey was conducted by Chandragupt Institute of Management, Patna in June-July 2015 at the behest of of Bihar’s chief electoral officer. This is probably the first of its kind study in India by the Election Commission of India.

A sample of 4,500 voters were part of this survey out of which half came from high voting percentage booths where as half came from the low voting percentage booth, Bihar’s additional Chief Electoral Officer R Lakshmanan told a leading national daily. Election commission, this time, is not only focusing on ensuring that more people exercised their franchise, but also working on promoting the ethical voting.

To create awareness among voters, the election commission has now launched a campaign to educate the people by putting up posters and banners on the roads as well as advertisements in newspapers and radio. According to the report, the voting percentage in Bihar in the last assembly elections held in 2010 was 52.67% and 56.28% in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014.

” It is a standard practice to find out voting pattern and voter’s behavior so that we can use the findings as inputs to improve the voter awareness activities,” Lakshmanan said.