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May222008
Concept of negative voting
The general elections are almost round the corner, and this is the apt time to discuss the topic of negative voting. Negative voting is an option of exercising one’s franchise to none of the contesting candidate. This exercising of negative voting, could be construed as an expression of discontent with the candidates or as against the political parties at large.
The need for such a provision could be argued based on the socio-political ground that people are discontented with the performance of the political parties and the leaders, and hence negative voting as a tool of expressing this dissent. Many recent elections have seen drastic fall in the polling ratio, which is being attributed to the loss of faith in the political parties. Lot of people has just stopped exercising their right to vote. When less than 50% of the voters select a government, what legitimacy of ‘people’s will’ does that win carry? Will negative voting help as an alternative to this problem, is the moot question? As such what does negative voting help? It helps to bring those who do not want to select any of the candidates to the electoral booths, and express their dissent. But even then, above mentioned condition of a candidate getting elected by very low margin of votes, as compared to the total number of votes being polled may continue, but the polling percentage has high chances of going up and thus could reflect the actual will of people. Though this would actually reflect good governance, this in no way is going to invalidate candidature of any of the contestants, but just that this helps to bring out the best of democracy. It is at last the choice of the people, and to prove the fallacy of depicting common man as a fool, who has no other option other than choosing between two people on the basis of who is less bad than the other.
Now, the legality of this issue, as the position stands now is that a voter has the option to refuse to vote after he has been identified and necessary entries made in the Register of Electors and the marked copy of the electoral roll (this is in the case of Electronic Voting Machines). In the case of conventional ballot paper and ballot boxes, which was in use before, a voter could drop the ballot paper without marking his vote against any of the candidate. This is as per the Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961
But this throws up the issue of compromising with the secrecy. Secret ballot is one of the characteristic of a democratic poll. Here the polling officials and the polling agents in the polling station have the knowledge of the choice of the voter.
So for an effective negative voting, it is important that it should have secrecy. Election Commission of India (ECI), in its electoral reforms, has recommended as follows:
The Commission recommends that the law should be amended to specifically provide for negative / neutral voting. For this purpose, Rules 22 and 49B of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 may be suitably amended adding a proviso that in the ballot paper and the particulars on the ballot unit, in the column relating to names of candidates, after the entry relating to the last candidate, there shall be a column “None of the above”, to enable a voter to reject all the candidates, if he chooses so. Such a proposal was earlier made by the Commission in 2001 (vide letter dated 10.12.2001).
There is a petition filed by the PUCL in 2005 ,before the Supreme Court seeking a right for the voter to cast a negative vote through the method recommended by ECI. But even though the petition is admitted, I presume the final decision is yet to come, as I cannot locate the judgment or any news item related to it in the preliminary search. As a sign of matured democracy, it is high time that such significant improvements in the electoral regime are incorporated.
Further reading: Electoral reforms proposed by Election Commission of India
The views expressed in this post are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by Mutiny.in
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Trailblazer
001
4:24 pm
True. Negative voting make sense. But is ours a mature enough democracy to accept it?
Naresh
002
1:28 pm
True… Negative voting does at least let the world know what the will of the public is. But if even 95% ppl go 4 this, what is EC going 2 do? Ask the parties to change candidates? Re-election?
Moreover, as of now, all those sitting at home n watchin tv on an election day r probably thinkin they r lettin someone know they r not confident on the political parties. These ppl shud b educated about negative voting first!
arjun
003
9:57 pm
I think negative voting is very effective tool to our voter in today democracy. we need to use in a wise manner. first whom u want to vote and then whom u think is not deserve to be good enough to fight a election and the candidate who get maximum number of negative votes should be debarred from fighting elections for minimum three terms or for life time. If we have such options it will defiantly create a panic the leaders mind. Now everybody is getting criminal candidate because they think after winning the election they will come right side of law and if 5 lac or 10 lac people of any constituency think that a candidate is not good enough to go the election he should be debarred from holding govt post. By this , the parties need to rethink before getting candidates and it will help to votes check the candidate who change parties in election season.
I hope some day it will turn in reality
garima
004
11:39 pm
i completely agree with above comments.Negative voting can be used as an effective tool in bringing down the criminalization of politics, provided there is a rule against the candidate getting high number of negative votes.
EC should take a step forward and make a rule whereby the candidature of the candidate is cancelled
Abhishek Kumar
005
4:41 pm
I go against the negative voting proposal. Choosing none shows no faith in democracy. Choosing none means choosing onself only. Then every body would be a govt. stystem.
We must try to cure the ill syestem not kill.
arjun
006
3:26 pm
Abhishek , you get confused with the concept of negative voting, we are not talking about choosing none of the above, what we are discussing here , we must get some right to reject a candidate , the way we vote for a particular candidate , we can do a negative vote for one candidate, and the candidate who get largest number of negative votes should be debarred for contesting elections for next 15 years or for whole life depending on the rule. By this at least it will create some kind of fear to the candidate and by this people can give there verdicts, take the example of jagdesh tytler, its has been showing by his party that he has been rolled back from elections he did some kind of charity, if we have such concepts with people can throw him out of office by negative voting if people think he is guilty or not but all we can do is just sit and watch
aakarsh
007
1:04 pm
i agree with the views of the author herein above and the last gentleman making the comment, after all we are ourselves responsible for the leadership we get. negative voting is an apt tool to show dissent towards a particular candidate so that people like Jagdish tytler, Narender Modi, Mulayam singh are not allowed to be eligible for candidature ever again. and according to me this tool brings out the best of democracy and goes a long way in ensuring good governance.
Vinay
008
2:29 pm
I agree with Negative voting.
I think there must be some sort of qualifications ( i.e. education,background etc ) for the candidates.
kanika
009
12:17 am
Negative voting as a concept is outstanding but an efficient implementation of this requires a proper functioning.
Just like our normal voting is largely influenced by political parties and thier supporters (wherein bribe,corruption et all plays a role) similarly negative voting can be used for negative reasons.A party and its candidate might send in thier false voters to caste a negative vote for a deserving candidate of thier rival party.Anyhow, any project has its pros and cons and we should go ahead with an optimistic approach and try to come up with a method to execute this concept keeping in mind all these difficulties.
arjun
010
4:39 pm
I agree with kanika, its India every law that we make good purpose get be misused in India but it can be done with safe guards in election we can keep some rule do debar a candidate who get highest number of negative voting like the person get approx 50 % negative vote of total votes , i mean to say no body can influence such a large number of voters that who will do negative voting, if they did it could be there anguish towards the candidate, we can keep a option that person it debarred for certain number of years , which is importation in the something is better than nothing, we as a citizen of this country must have right to do teach a lesson
rishi
011
7:50 pm
i might be the only person who disagrees. for me, negative voting is not the solution. As mentioned we always have to choose who is ‘less bad’ and if people get an opportunity by way of negative voting not to choose any candidate then most of the people will go for this option only. if negative voting becomes a right then people will start hitting the same button coz that will be the ‘best option’ they will have.
i think our govt should make certain qualifications for candidates and any person with criminal background should not get any chance. well that i know is impossible coz the germs have already entered into the Indian politics and the laws are unfortunately made by them so how can they go against people of there own community.