Bill Boerum – Chairman Emeritus, Sister Cities International, Washington D.C. said how we got here is a long process of election in the US. In the current scenario, we are trying to see who will go to win this election, generally, they follow the public poll. People will be voting in 50 states of the US, and each of them has different rules, and voters get their ballot paper through the mail. Each state conducts the election process with the help of workers. US election process is executed in 3 phases and it is a multi-disciplinary election system.
The driving force of the US election process is majorly on the economy. Employment (At present unemployment is below 8%) protection for healthcare, right for abortion, etc. We have to do more on social justice in the US. Immigration is not an issue for this country. Each state will get its votes and states have got their electoral. Majorly votes are cast through mail ballots, which include absentee ballots as well. Everyone is getting their ballot paper in the mail, those who are moved, dead, and even double ballot paper. In this process, signatures of voters are matched with the database, and more than 2% of ballot papers get rejected. This whole process takes around 3 to 4 weeks to count all the votes.
Earlier, Girish Deodhar – Chairman – MSME Forum said VIA is a more than half a century-old organization having more than 600 members, We are few lucky who will be enlightened to know about the US election process from Bill Boerum.
Suresh Rathi – President VIA – said that the bill is closely monitoring the US election process and this topic is subject of interest to the whole world. Now we will be going to witness the US election where we will see whether Trump will win this election or the democratic party. What will be there for education, health care, what will be their international policy keeping in view of the current situation amongst the US, China & Pakistan. Also the growth of industries in the country in important sectors like Pharma & Information technology etc.
Dinesh Jain – President – Nagpur First said – It is a pleasure to invite  Bill Boerum, Hemant Lodha from Nagpur. We had an MOU as sister cities between Nagpur & Santa Clara to promote Business & careers. Bill has been following the election process for very long, it will be good learning for all of us about the US election process.
Ashit Sinha – Mentor VIA proposed a vote of thanks and said that this process is very confusing, complex & complicated, Indian people find it difficult to understand, but Bill has explained in very easy terms. We thank Dinesh Jain & Bill for collaborating with VIA.
Sachin Jahagirdar, Treasurer, Nagpur First expressed his happiness that VIA & NF, came together and should continue the association with more such events, which are Global in Nature and are beneficial to the people of Nagpur.
The program was largely attended