Three simple things Election Commission must fix urgently, before solving larger problems

There is more EC can do to assuage fears and problems of voters than arrange for ‘hackathons’.

Representational photo | PTI

The ongoing Lok Sabha elections have given us all the opportunity to celebrate that most precious asset of our democracy: the citizen’s right to vote. At the same time, the conduct of the elections has highlighted numerous flaws that the Election Commission must fix urgently.

While there’s no space for an exhaustive critique on elections in India – which should ideally include thorny issues of election financing and the code of conduct – there are a couple of simpler practical problems that need to be dealt with right away.

Removal of names from voter lists

One uniquely Indian electoral practice is the arbitrary removal of names of voters from the electoral rolls without their knowledge. Nothing can be more disempowering to a voter in the country than being disenfranchised; yet it happens to too many of our fellow citizens. When Thiruvananthapuram voted on 23 April, many voters were shocked to find, after standing in queues for hours under the hot sun with valid election ID cards, that their names had been struck off the electoral roll.

Nearly 140 people, many of them senior citizens, complained to me about this issue and I have written to the chief electoral officer of Kerala to investigate this matter.

Since the final electoral roll had already been published, it was impossible for me to ensure that these citizens’ names were included in the electoral roll on the election day. However, the absence of a fair process governing the removal of names from the electoral roll is at the root of the problem.

The electoral roll needs to be revised from time to time to remove voters who no longer live in the constituency, have moved home or passed away (known as absent/shifted/dead voters or ASD voters).

That’s understandable, because if such names figure in the electoral roll, it may lead to incidents of bogus voting. Rule 21A of The Registration of Electors Rules, 1961, which permits a process to remove such persons from the electoral roll, only requires the registration officer to exhibit a list of such people on the notice board of his or her office. The registration officer is required to give these people a reasonable opportunity to explain why they should not be removed from the electoral roll, but is silent on how this is supposed to happen.

There is no mandatory requirement for the registration officer to serve a physical notice to every person on the list. A person is supposed to have been aware of the fact that his or her name may be removed merely because the list is published by the registration officer, even if he or she does not have actual knowledge of it. This is woefully inadequate in a democracy.

The rule must be amended to provide for a fairer procedure to remove a person from the electoral roll, by issuing a show-cause notice to their residence. He or she must be given a minimum of 10 days to respond to the notice in person, so that genuine voters are not disenfranchised.

This procedure must be incorporated in the statute books and not merely under the rules, as any government can tweak the rules without sanction from Parliament.

In addition, before the electoral roll is finalised, officials of the Election Commission must visit every residence in a constituency and inform the residents as to whether or not they are in the electoral roll. This must be done in advance so as to give those who may have been inadvertently removed from the list or not included in it, adequate time to make an application to be included in the electoral roll.

It is impractical on behalf of the Election Commission to expect every elector – especially people who may not have access to internet or an electronic device – to visit its service portal to check whether or not their name is in the electoral roll. While political parties voluntarily undertake work to ensure that as many people are included in the electoral roll, the Election Commission must mandatorily ensure that every elector is counted. It may mean recruiting more people and increasing the budget of the Election Commission, but it’s essential to ensure that every single person is given the opportunity to exercise the most powerful right in a democracy.

There are also many cases of people arriving at the polling station to be told that their votes have already been cast – obviously by people who pretended to be them. With photographic ID cards that should not be happening, yet it does, thanks to inattentive or overwhelmed election officers. The number of such cases is fortunately dwindling, but it points to the need for more and better-trained election staff.

Time required to vote

Very often, at peak hours, people find themselves in voting queues over 50 voters long, and have to wait more than a couple of hours to cast their vote. It may come as a surprise to some, but there have even been instances of people dying while waiting in queue to vote, especially due to sun-strokes caused by the sweltering summer heat. Given the size of our population, there is merit in increasing the number of EVMs in booths where such delays are occurring. When there are more than 25 people standing in line to vote, the presiding officer at the polling station must be allowed to requisition an additional EVM and form a new line.

That will cost more, but additional work orders to BEL and ECIL to manufacture more EVMs will only benefit our PSUs, especially while some of them are being woefully neglected by the government.

EVM functioning

There have also been numerous complaints of EVM malfunctions on the day of voting: the media has reported many of them. While it may be yet to be proven as to whether an EVM can be tampered with, there is certainly a growing fear among voters – fuelled by rumours of “fixes” at the manufacturing stage and/or “hacking” at later times – that EVMs may not guarantee free and fair elections. Irrespective of the results of the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, the new government must appoint a commission with independent technical experts to look into this issue.

We all need ways to ensure that the production, software-installation and allotment of EVMs are done in a transparent manner. This will do more to assuage fears than the four-hour ‘hackathon’ organised by the Election Commission, which was saddled with numerous conditions that defeated the main purpose of the exercise.

While the Supreme Court has rejected petitions seeking 50 per cent VVPAT verification, Parliament must debate the possibility of increasing VVPAT verification to between 10 per cent to 25 per cent, so as to increase voter confidence without unduly delaying the counting process.

There’s more to be said on the elections, but this is a nuts-and-bolts list for starters. I’ll return to the model code of conduct in a future column.

The author is a Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram and former MoS for External Affairs and HRD. He served the UN as an administrator and peacekeeper for three decades. He studied History at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University and International Relations at Tufts University. Tharoor has authored 18 books, both fiction and non-fiction; his most recent book is The Paradoxical Prime Minister. Follow him on Twitter @ShashiTharoor. Views are personal.