Hi all I recall there being a letter circulated about data requests to eci a few days ago. I had a suggestion about the format in which the ECI releases (or enables the release of), data contained in the affidavits of candidates. I wasnt sure whether this suggestion fit into that, so i broke it out into a separate thread.
Right now, candidate affidavits are released in the worst possible format - pdfs - not just for those looking to do some in-depth analysis into it, but even for the journalist/voter who wants to know more about the candidate declarations. I wondered if there was any possibility for engaging with the ECI over the longer term (obviously this election is out of the question) to change the format in which candidates must declare such data. They could be required to declare it in a couple of formats - one would be pdf of course, to enable those interested in a specific candidate. But the other format i had in mind was xml. The best analogy i can think of to this, is the recent requirement by the ministry of corporate affairs that companies file their reports with the registrar of companies in XBRL xml format. The EC could require candidates to do the same - they could make it easy by providing a software (could be as simple as an excel application) which will generate the xml and the pdf as well. (the other analogy here is the online filing of tax returns, which requires an xml to be filed online) The biggest criticism of any such change (that i can think of) is that poorer candidates, who don't have good access to a computer might find it extremely difficult to file this way. Perhaps there could be special facilities provided at the level of district electoral officer, to enable such candidates to make the filing. Once the filing is done in xml, it would be easy to convert it into more friendly formats (for humans), such as excel etc. Anyway, that was my suggestion. Perhaps its possible to engage with EC in the longer term to develop the standards for such a format. regards Avinash -- For more details about this list http://datameet.org/discussions/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "datameet" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
