Present Voting System-Challenges To The And Solutions

In a representative democracy, the best way of expressing an individual's opinion on the working of a political party for the betterment of himself is the Vote. In a Democracy, the value of vote is as important as the value of Haemoglobin in Human body. This is demonstrated by Article 326 of the Indian Constitution which states that Elections to the House of the people and to the legislative assemblies of states must be on the basis of adult suffrage. The Constitution-makers were far-sighted in their thoughts and actions and thus, they could make our country as one of the earliest ones in the world which adopted universal adult franchise to all those above 21 years of age, without any discrimination of caste, race, religion, sex, literacy, wealth, etc. They adopted this as they realised the importance of vote in an effective democracy. In 1989, to represent the views of the younger generation, the age restriction was reduced to 18 years from 21 years, by the 61st Constitutional Amendment Act (1988). This was a milestone for the electoral process. It brought a change in the manner the political system is seen by the youth. Inspite of electoral reforms in various aspects over the years, the voting system adopted in 1951-52 is still persistent. One of the reasons for this is a lack of a fool-proof alternative to the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system. However, one should remember that even the FPTP system is not a fool-proof one and is subjected to severe criticism.



Problems in First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system:

The FPTP system has its origins in an age-old saying, Winner takes it all. Thus, the person who gets the most votes in an election is deemed to get the tag of winner. But, this system falls short on two accounts. One is the assumption that the winner is the person getting the largest mandate and thus, the public approval. This is quite a fallacy as is evident in a multi-party system. It is often observed that the winning candidate of an election in a constituency is hardly able to get 40 percent of the total votes polled. Simple logic suggests that if a person is not preferred by about 60 percent of the population, he is not fit to be winner. Thus, the entire concept of winning an election by this system is a deceit. The second shortcoming is that the entire basis of FPTP system is on the foundation that there must be winners and losers in an election. Democracy does not mean either of these. It is about discussion, debate, consensus, mandate and most importantly, representation. Modern democracies take pride in the fact that they hold the authority to take decisions by the elected members as they are the representatives of the society. However, representation does not necessarily always account to winning. For instance, a candidate chosen by 39 percent of the public is as good a representative as a candidate with 40 percent votes. But, the FPTP system allows only the latter to be the representative, while terming the former as a loser. This also leads to the problem that the party which gets 40% of the total votes polled would be having around 55-60% of the representatives in the legislature.



Side-effects of FPTP:

Apart from these serious problems in the FPTP system, there are many other side-effects which need to be addressed. The first issue is the non-representation of minorities in the houses of representatives. Minority in this aspect does not only refer to caste, religion, sex or race, but also to those who have a definite objective in their election agenda. These candidates are contesting in the elections to represent the issues which he/she thinks are most important and crucial for a certain sections of people. The chances of those candidates getting elected in FPTP system are minimal as they do not appeal to the large masses. For instance, if a candidate takes up the issue of problems faced by a certain sections of tribes in an area, he/she, most probably, would not be representing them in the legislatures as they account to only a fraction of constituency. But, in an ideal democracy, their voices should be heard too.

Another side-effect of the FPTP system is the increase in vote-buying. This is a 2-step process. In the first step, the vote of an individual is made either extremely valuable or utterly useless. This is in reference to whether he supports a potential winning or a possible losing candidate. Though the competition is among many, the real fight for the throne is between two, or in some cases, three candidates. Thus, the minority (as defined earlier) section supporting anyone other than these would be considered as wasting their precious vote. The second step of actual vote-buying starts then. It is an undeniable fact that each of the potential-winning candidates has a strong base of 20-25 percent of vote share, which cannot be easily disturbed. The quest for the remaining 10 percent of votes to be distributed among these candidates is a difficult process which makes those 10% voters aware that their vote is of high value to the candidates, but, sadly, not for him. Most of them are usually of uneducated and unemployed background and thus sell their votes to the highest bidder.



Solution Strategy:

To address these issues, the concept of negative voting in the form of Rule 49-O in the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, has been introduced. However, this has seldom been used by the voters as it involved a tedious and intriguing process of announcing to the returning officer that he would like to exercise that option. This denies the secrecy of the vote. Recently, the Supreme Court of India ordered the Election Commission to include None Of The Above (NOTA) option in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to enable privacy and also to decide on the outcome if NOTA gets the highest public mandate. The Election Commission has duly replied that even though NOTA gets the mandate, the candidate who gets the 2nd highest vote would be declared as elected with accordance to the Representation of Peoples Act. Thus, the sole purpose of introducing NOTA has been negated.



Proportional Representation:

When the search of fool-proof system does not give satisfactory results, it is always better to go for a better system for the present and keep on improving it instead of being inactive in the issue. One possible alternative to the FPTP system is the Proportional Representation (PR) system of election. This system is already effectively implemented in the European countries like Germany and South American countries like Venezuela, and recently in some parts of Australia and New Zealand.

The PR system basically works on the premise that elections in democracies are to elect representatives and not winners. To achieve this, instead of a single-winner constituency, they have multi-member constituencies, which are larger in size and population than those of ours. The voters choose their candidate and/or party. A number of members in each constituency are elected on the basis on the number of representatives allotted to that constituency and their respective vote share. Thus, a constituency can have, for instance, 5 or 10 representatives from same or different political parties, in the legislature. Thus, the difference between the candidate with 39% and 40% vote share is reduced.

This process also solves the problem of vote-buying as it effectively eliminates the two issues responsible for it (mentioned earlier). The minority section can also be represented effectively with this kind of system. Also, the vote share of a party is effectively seen in the representation of that party in the houses. These merits made the PR system an indispensable tool in the effective functioning of democracy in many countries.



Conclusion:

The right to vote is not effective unless it is accompanied by a right to representation. In a multi-party system like ours, it is indisputable that the FPTP system of voting is an ineffective way of representation. The Election Commission should realise this and make proper reforms in the voting system. Research should be carried on by taking the examples of the countries following different voting systems and analysis should be done in the way it is effective and better than ours. Alternatives like the Proportional Representation system should be introduced as an experiment in elections of Municipalities, Panchayats or Legislative Councils. The results should be analysed properly. If it is found to be more effective than the present system, it should be adopted in the state assemblies and Lok Sabha elections after properly educating the voters about the system. This would assist in a healthy democracy and enable every individual to have the right to representation.



References:

1. Indian Polity by Laxmikanth, TMH

2. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/beginningreadings.htm





by Viswanath BNS

Essay

Essay
Topic : The recent rulings of the Supreme Court are going to have deep implication on the political gamut of the country. Do you agree with this statement? How far? What are your disagreements?
In the last couple of years India seems to be going through a sort of awakening process. The wide spread reach of internet, proliferation of news channels, newspapers, proactive journalism and mobile phones made social forums and discussions a routine thing in even the far flung areas of the country. This has made the ordinary person aware of the deep routed sickness of corruption in the Indian bureaucratic and political system. Political corruption is more a matter of debate in the nation because of the sheer size of it. 2G, CWG, Land Scams, Coalgate, Adarsh, Porngate, Bhanwri Devi kidnap and murder, Tatra Truck controversy are all household terms nowadays.
Amidst all this a PIL was lodged in the Supreme Court demanding cleansing of politics. The Court has answered the need of the hour by a very much debatable ruling by interpreting the RPA act. Further in a separate ruling the bench headed by CJI himself has declared right to reject implicit in the fundamental rights. These two rulings of the court are supposed to go a long way in changing the face of Indian politics. It can be hoped that once politics is clean the rest of the machinery will improve rapidly.
However these rulings are not without their controversies. The first of the rulings says that any legislator or a candidate for legislature will be disqualified immediately if a court of law has convicted or found accused, such a person, in offences as defined in the RPA act as offences, conviction in which can be awarded for two or more years of sentence and/or fine for the term of the conviction and further 6 years. The existent law gave the convict a window of three months to make an appeal in the higher court and if such an appeal lies, he can carry on as a legislator, as long as the higher court does not find him guilty. The ruling of the court has eliminated the window and the tainted legislator is disqualified immediately.
This ruling will have two major impacts. First after this ruling the old scourge of criminalization of politics will get cured. It is a welcome change. Every citizen wants to see a clean legislature. There has been a resentment of law breakers holding the place of law makers. Second impact is negative, that it gives an opportunity to innovative politicians wage their political war. A politician can just get lodged an FIR against a rival politician and get him disqualified, investigations notwithstanding. Considering the influence a sitting MLA or MP has on the police and other law enforcement agencies, it is a walk in the park for them. This can disrupt the democratic functioning of our system. While in the first system it is easy for a criminal to make his way into the legislature, after the ruling it will be impossible for people with tainted record to reach the legislature, but at the same time hard for anyone to challenge the sitting legislature.
The one side of the coin is so bright that it outshines the other in the eyes of a common man. A clean legislature, MPs and MLAs who command peoples respect from their honesty in life and actions seemed to be a distant dream but the ruling of the court has made it realistic. But does a clean legislature guarantee the fulfillment of the nations dreams, elimination of poverty, hunger, disease, grievance of the tribals, a dutiful police, early justice, corruption free bureaucracy and so on. In words of Hitler, in politics, the good intentions of a man can not make up for his incompetence. There is no guarantee that even a clean legislature can be competent enough to answer the grievances of this nation, which are so difficult to handle. There is no such guarantee, only a hope. But as long as there are criminals right in the parliament, even such hope does not exist.
There are costs which the nation will have to pay for such a clean legislature. A really potent politician who is well capable of leading his people out of the misery of circumstances might become the victim of false accusations, engineered investigation, and influenced judgment and his career may get ruined. The ruling has provided powerful people a very dangerous weapon to eliminate their rivals. It is not beyond ones imagination that many a political careers will be sacrificed for this dream of clean legislature. Furthur a tainted powerful man can always field people on his behalf such as his son or wife and reap all the benefits. This ruling can clean the legislature for the purpose of paper but not necessarily for the purpose of conduct. The prospect of a clean legislature on record are bright by this ruling but a clean legislature in intentions can by no means guaranteed.
In my opinion the criminalization of politics is not a result of loopholes in the law, but its a result of bovine and careless nature of the common man. There are criminals in the parliament not because the law has permitted them to contest but because we have chosen criminals to represent us. For decades we have been voting on caste lines, communal lines, language and resemblance. People in India vote an image, not a personality. Without knowing a sinlge thing about the real character of a candidate we have been voting all our lives for his caste, religion and language. At best we vote the party, but only very rarely we vote the man. We all get blown by the propaganda. Propaganda is driven by the finance and muscle of criminals. We never try to look for the real truth for ourselves, we only trust the propaganda. The result is before us, 33% criminal in our apex legislature. Even the new ruling can eliminate the criminals from the legislature but not crime from politics. Criminal may be in the jail, but his son or wife will ride the propaganda and reach the legislature. Nothing will be solved until the common man looks into his own conscience, puts away the lure of caste and religion and votes the righteous irrespective of his background.
The court has given its best by giving this ruling, but I dont see upside down changes in the political gamut until the voting behavior changes. The role of the media is paramount in unmasking the truth behind the propaganda, and the media is doing a commendable job indeed. However, the drive behind the activeness of the media is not an urge to strengthen the democracy but TRP. I dont mind this as long as awareness about the real character of those who rule us keeps on spreading.
Lets move on to the second ruling of the court. In a landmark judgment the court has declared that the right to reject all the candidates in an election if the voters dont find any of the candidate worthy of his vote, is a fundamental right implicit in the right to expression. Earlier, one had to vote at least one of the candidates whether he like it or not. In the ruling the court has directed the election commission to add the choice NOTA as an option. If a voter finds none of the candidates worthy of his support he can reject them all by NOTA. The right to reject exist in many other democracies like USA, UK. However the NOTA will not change in the election results since a person exercising NOTA will amount to not voted for anyone. It will add zero votes to all of the candidates. However, in the true right to reject if a sufficient number of voter choose NOTA, the election will become void and fresh election will be held considering the earlier candidates were hated by so many voters that it will amount to tyranny if any one of them reached legislature.
So in those term the new ruling will not have a substantial impact on the outcome of the election, however many people believe that the coming election will be more democratic because of the NOTA option. Many of the people do not go to vote simply because they do not like any of the candidates. This new option is supposed to increase the ballot substantially. I see the importance if this ruling in paving the way for real right to reject since no big change comes at once but step by step. Once the people at large become aware of the NOTA they will demand the full right to reject. The way I see it, the constitutional duty of the Supreme Court as being the protector of the social revolution has been duly fulfilled in paving the way for a new instrument of democracy. I can imagine the NGOs and other sections of the people demanding full fledged right to reject once the NOTA becomes a wide phenomenon.
As we have seen the series of ruling by the EC and Supreme Court have come a long way in democratic process in the country. But these rulings like mandatory disclosure by the candidates of their assets and liability, declaration of criminal record if any, monitoring of the election spending, stringent codes of conduct, prohibition of liquor, disclosures of large sums of donations received by parties have not changed by a great deal the ground realities. Most of the grievances of the people still remain unsolved. Many new grievances appear. The recent rulings of the court are, in my opinion new chapters in the book of electoral reforms. This book is a book after all, it cannot change much until the reader adopts the noblel reading in his life. Not much will change if the common man does not apply his mind and use his vote as if it was a valuable asset, because a vote is valuable indeed.
What greater luck for the rulers than those whom they rule do not think. Adolf Hitler

Neeraj Gaur