CASTING votes is not something new to Elan Jiang.

If all elections, including those to select student representatives and cadres to work for the class and the school, are taken into account, Jiang, a 19-year-old student at Shanghai Maritime University, has already accumulated considerable experience.

"I like the exciting atmosphere at the election site. It speeds the pulses not only of the candidates but also of the voters," Jiang said.

Yet the election she participated last month at Meiyuan Residential Area in Pudong District changed her mind.

It was to select deputies to attend the Pudong District People's Congress.

Meiyuan Residential Area, where Jiang's university is located, is the forerunner in the current citywide election, and for the rest of the city, the election will be held on March 6.

Voting for the unknown

Held once every five years, this was actually the first time the 19-year-old had participated in a democratic election of this kind, since only adults above 18 years old, have the right to vote.

In some ways, this election could be more important than any of the other vote-castings Jiang has made before.

The People's Congress, from the highest national level to the grassroots township level, is responsible for supervising government work, and for writing, amending or abolishing laws.

The National People's Congress has the supreme State power, such as the right to adopt, revise or abolish the laws and to decide who are to be State leaders including the President of China. Congress deputies, representing the interest of the people, discuss political issues with government institutions when supervising their work.

It sounds quite exciting, therefore to select Congress deputies.

"Yet believe it or not, the election was boring," Jiang said.

The voting was held at a big meeting room on the campus. In the voting area where her university is located, the voters will sift out one from the three candidates.

Although only one of the three would lose, the competition, if not very heated, was still there. Yet in the meeting room little competitive atmosphere could be detected, as all the four candidates were strangers to many of the student voters.

"None of the candidates has ever made election speeches to us. There might be some paper with their resumes pasted somewhere on the campus, but if so most of us didn't see it," Jiang said.

Were it not for the brief introduction made by the organizer for each candidate, which mainly included their education background, working experiences and achievements, the students would have had to decide the winners based on nothing but their names.

It is reported that in the last round of the district Congress deputies election in Northwest China's Qinghai Province, over 600 university students refused to cast votes on election day because they hadn't seen the candidates, or heard any of their election speeches and promises. The organizer, facing this sort of situation, had to assemble all the candidates right away.

"It seems the situation didn't improve much from five years ago," said another university student surnamed Xu, who was participating in such an election for the second time, and her view was shared by many of her classmates.

Increased participation

Zhou Jinqin, an official working with the Jiangsu Lu Neighbourhood Committee, said meetings between the candidates and voters are normally held during the five days before the election, which is a fixed practice.

Candidates and officials of the neighbourhood community jointly organize the meetings. The candidates make their election speeches, and answer voters' questions at the meetings.

"As for setting out individually to lobby for the election, that is rarely heard of, and normally we don't encourage it," Zhou said.

But how can these five days be enough to let voters know the candidates? Surely not all the five days would be available for voters to spend time attending the meetings.

Also the candidates wouldn't be able to circulate around all the residential quarters to make their speeches, since the time period is so limited.

Besides the election speeches are usually held in the meeting rooms in the subdistrict offices, with most residents unlikely to attend.

So for a large percentage of voters, knowledge of the candidates is minimal.

"After so many years, we have generally overcome the difficulty of getting more people participate in the voting," said Hu Zhengchang, vice director of Shanghai Municipal People's Congress during a visit to the Meiyuan area, the forerunner neighbourhood in the current election.

Statistics show that more people are choosing to go to the registration site actively, instead of waiting at home until staff from the election office come to their doors to help them register, which is no doubt encouraging news.

In Pudong District, over 70 per cent of the residents register as voters voluntarily. And the overall registration rate of the district has exceeded 90 per cent for the current election.

However, if the voters know nothing about the candidates, the high participation rate only makes the whole thing look more ridiculous.

"If more people run for Congress deputies, the heated competition will surely bring the candidates closer to the voters," said Xue Hai, an official with the city's election office.

A good sign for the current election is that the number of those who want to be Congress deputies has shown a great increase compared with five years ago, especially among big enterprises.

The heated competition may force the candidates to spend more efforts on the election, which can also help to stimulate more democratic awareness from the general public and increase their interest in the election.

"In addition to getting closer to the voters and making more speeches and promises, the candidates will also form a sense of responsibility about their future Congress work," he said.

"It can help to change the concept of many Congress deputies, who sometimes still take this post more for an honour, instead of as a real task to serve the people."