With increasing urbanization in India, citizens’ expectations and demands regarding the quality of democratic institutions are likely to increase. Consequently, democratic institutions are under pressure to evaluate and improve the quality of services. One of the key institutions that determine the future of urban India is the electoral system and its processes. Given this context, this study attempts to discuss the two key electoral processes: registration and balloting. The objective is to analyze these processes and argue for developing an Electoral System Index (ESI) as a tool to identify areas of concern and make recommendations to reform municipal election processes for the city of Bangalore. This study endeavours to address the above-stated problem through the theoretical perspective of the Dreze-Sen model of democracy and the conceptual framework of applying customer service standards to public institutions (responsiveness). The study, based on both qualitative and quantitative research methods and through sampled wards, demonstrates that citizens’ experiences with certain aspects of the electoral processes were not uniform, thereby validating the need for ESI to make data-driven recommendations for future reforms.
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