No to NOTA? Fewer takers for last button

The share of voters pressing the NOTA button has been on a decline in general elections since a Supreme Court order sealed a spot for it on electronic voting machines across India in 2013.

The portion of ‘none of the above’ option or NOTA dropped from 1.08 per cent in 2014 general election to 1.06 per cent in 2019 polls.

And, according to an analysis of data from the Election Commission and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the assembly elections also point towards a similar trend after 2019. The share of NOTA in the total votes polled remained over 1 per cent in the states that had their assembly elections in 2018, 2019 and 2020, according to data from ADR.

However, in the subsequent years the share of NOTA declined gradually and remained under one percentage.

Over a million NOTA votes were polled in the nine states that had their assembly elections in 2023 but they accounted for less than one percentage of the total votes.

A state-wise analysis of NOTA votes shows that Tripura and Chhattisgarh had a marginally higher share of NOTA votes compared to the other seven states that had their assembly elections in 2023.

NOTA accounted for about 1.4 per cent of the total votes polled in Tripura and 1.3 per cent of the votes polled in Chhattisgarh.

Just 0.3 per cent of the votes in Nagaland were under the NOTA category, the lowest among the states in 2023. The majority of states which held elections in 2023 saw less than 1 per cent share for NOTA.

Back in 2013, the Supreme Court (SC) had asked the Election Commission to include the option of NOTA in the ballot paper to allow the Indian voter to express their “right to reject”. candidates they consider unworthy of their vote.