How proxy voting in India polls could lead to fraud
It goes against the very concept of a secret ballot as one has to disclose his or her preference
Instead of tinkering with the electoral edifice for short-term political gains, the Indian government must realise that proxy voting is highly susceptible electoral fraud as it purely depends on the trust of a third party.
On December 18, 2017, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad introduced The Representation of The People (Amendment) Bill, 2017, in the Lok Sabha. As a two-page Bill, it is fairly short in comparison to bills running into nearly a hundred pages. The brevity of the Bill may even tempt legislatures to dismiss it as a mere technical amendment.
However, this small document, once passed, can significantly alter the manner in which electoral politics is carried out in India, as it provides legal sanction to ‘proxy voting’ for elections.
Writ petitions filed by NRIs in 2013 seeking the right to vote through an overseas electoral process led to the Supreme Court’s order directing the Election Commission of India (EC) to constitute a committee to explore the options of overseas voting for NRIs.
In October, 2014, the committee submitted its report. The report ruled out the feasibility of allowing physical voting in embassies because of the inability of the missions abroad to deal with EVMs for over 500 constitutes in one or few sites due to logistical issues. It ruled out voting through an online website on the ground that hackers and viruses could misuse the interface and rig the elections. In its conclusion, the report recommended the usage of e-postal ballots as well as proxy voting — the latter being the most doable method, according to the committee.
The e-postal ballot system, according to the report, is one in which a registered NRI voter will be sent a blank ballot paper by email and the voter can mark the ballot and send it back by post. In the view of the committee, this process is relatively safe compared to the risks of manipulation and rigging involved with other options, including a two-way e-ballot system, whereby the ballot may be intercepted through an online mechanism.
Proxy voting is a process whereby a NRI can nominate an individual in the constituency (the address as mentioned in the passport of NRI), to vote on his or her behalf. The former chief election commissioner (CEC), Dr SY Quraishi in his article has succinctly explained the problems with a proxy voting system. In addition to these logistical issues, it is important
When the EC of India, with its full machinery, finds it difficult to eliminate ADS voters from electoral rolls, one wonders how Indian missions, with their limited man-power and resources, can undertake such an exercise among overseas citizens of India
to test the proposed bill from a law and policy based perspective.
The right to vote is not a fundamental right, although the decision to vote for a candidate has been held as an exercise of the right to expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the constitution of India.
Proxy vote in essence goes against the very concept of a secret ballot as one has to disclose his or her preference to another individual, who in turn has to vote on his or her behalf. There is no guarantee that the proxy will vote for the candidate preferred by the overeseas voter, thereby vitiating the object of free and fair elections. Therefore, the proposed legislation can be challenged as being ultra vires to the constitution.
Proxy voting is highly susceptible electoral fraud, as it purely depends on the trust of a third party. While there are countries which allow the process of proxy voting, the economic inequalities suffered by many overseas Indians cannot be compared with overseas citizens of other countries. A large number of overseas Indians are subjected to harsh working environments. Employers with vested interests can and coerce these workers to issue proxies to certain individuals to push the agenda of such vested interests.
In the United Kingdom, the use of proxy voting led to instance of ‘granny farming’, whereby the authorisation to proxies from senior citizens were obtained, without them even realising it. In India, with bribing of voters remaining an issue which the EC still grapples with, proxy voting may increase this malaise, since the candidate can obtain two votes from an individual through the payment of a bribe.
A voter will only delegate the right to vote to a proxy, if such proxy in that particular constituency has the trust and confidence of the voter. Therefore, in the absence of such a relationship, the NRI is left disenfranchised. This hurdle can be remedied by providing the additional option of an epostal ballot, leaving it to the discretion of the voter, as recommended by the committee. This option is however ruled out by the language used in clause 3 (ii) of the proposed Bill, which states that overseas citizens can “vote either in person or by proxy and not in any other manner”.
The preparation of electoral rolls in a country of 1.3 billion people is an extremely complicated matter. A major hurdle in the preparation of these rolls, is the removal of ‘Absentee, Duplicate and Shifted Voters’, (ADS voters). As the name suggests, these are persons who may have their names in two constituencies owing to change in residence, or voters who are no longer alive or present in the constituency. The presence of ADS voters can also be a source of electoral fraud. When the EC of India, with its full machinery, finds it difficult to eliminate ADS voters from electoral rolls, one wonders how Indian missions, with their limited man-power and resources, can undertake such an exercise among overseas citizens of India.
The election machinery and the functioning of the EC as a whole is a testimony to our ability to build institutions, despite the major challenges it may face. Any changes to this carefully built edifice, must be tempered by experimentation on a small scale, before adopting any the change or reform on a larger scale.
A wide section of the Indian diaspora, may echo the efforts of the government in providing proxy voting, however, the true mark of statecraft is the ability to formulate policy based on logical and cogent analysis and objectives, instead of tinkering with the electoral edifice for short-term political gains.