According to Rajiv Kakria, booths are captured months before the elections in a bloodless swoop without a bullet being fired. Booth-Wise Result of Constituencies should not be made available to anyone. Elected representatives after getting the booth-wise result of polling, then start blackmailing.”
For any democracy to survive adult franchise is a pre-condition and the other more importantly a secretor ballot. As India votes to choose 18th Lok Sabha amidst questions raised on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM)s’ reliability and country wide protests demanding its complete roll back and also the demand for hundred percent counting and cross-checking of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) records, there are more serious questions not on the EVMs, as allows quick and easy to handle votes, but the process adopted to count votes baring the secrecy of votes disenfranchising the voters putting a big question mark on the credibility of the entire election exercise.
The big question therefore is if your ballot secret? If not, the very basic factor responsible for the free and fair election is jeopardised, eventually dismantling the edifice of democracy, and the culprit is the process around voting machine which collects the votes but cant keep it a secret. In absence of ‘Totalizer’ which was recommended by the election commission, way back in 2008, endorsed by the Law commission and court’s order for its implementation, EVMs continue to be used as a booth-wise vote casting machine with no mechanism for keeping the votes secret, clearly disenfranchising the voters for their ‘fundamental right’ to choose the government of their choice by ‘free and fair’ and without fear or pressure on their choices.
In 2013, even before the Bhartiya Janata Party formed the government in 2014 and much before electronic voting machines came under hammer for the possible tampering, this was realised by the election commission of India that EVMs, can tamper with the process opening the secrecy of the individual voters preferences. Over the years, while possibilities of tampering of the EVMs became a prominent issue with differed opinions and questions raised on the VVPAT for its transparency in particular and eliminating the use of EVMs in general, the belief that EVMs penetrate into the fairness of democratic process is supported purely by the mathematics based on how the vote is cast and how these are being counted. The very methodology of counting of votes through EVMs has been under scanner since long, but with safeguard mechanism proposed by the Election commission of India, courts and Law Commission in the form of totaliser, but not implemented yet for want of executive decision, tearing apart the very concept of ‘secret ballot’
What is a ‘Secret Ballot’
Right to free and fair elections to the citizen of India emanates from the fundamental right to Free Speech and Expression as enshrined in Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution of India. Under the provisions of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951, every citizen of India has the “right to vote” which includes and inheres in it right to have fair and free opportunity to every citizen of India to cast his/her vote without having any fear or intimidation. The Act also provides for maintaining “secrecy of voting” and also for “maintaining of secrecy regarding counting of Votes” by every person connected with the recording or counting of votes. The rules under the Act also recommend “maintenance of secrecy of voting” by electors within polling station and voting procedure.
Why EVMs doesn’t keep ‘Secrecy of Ballot’
Before 1971, counting of votes used undertaken polling station wise but the post poll violence and intimidation of the voters in the areas where the voters had not voted for a particular candidate, the procedure was changed and instead, ballot papers of all booths/polling stations in a single constituency were mixed to ensure anonymity of voters and then counted.
Electronic Voting Machines were introduced in 1998 in India for voting and counting of votes in “constituency-based Elections” (in part), and since 2004 used on complete base in the country as a voting mechanism. The EVMs however, continued pre 1971 system of counting the votes booth or polling station wise. This, ever since EVMs use as voting mechanism has put a question mark for not only the secrecy of vote but also for the intimidation of the voters. It actually discloses the voting preference of a particular polling station as this is an easy understanding during the counting process which ballot box is carrying the vote of which block, Mohalla, or house numbers. While individual vote may be a secret but EVMs clearly discounts the provision of ‘secrecy of votes’ by disclosing the booth wise voting pattern to the election officers , the government servants, and the political party agents, who can easily identify the voting patterns and even individual votes in an area.
This not only leads to violation of right of secrecy of ballot/maintenance of secrecy of ballot, but also right to vote without fear and intimidation baring the voters to pre and post elections coercion and victimization. This also gives an opportunity for the political parties specially the ruling party for undue influence, allurement of voters and trading of votes. This according to the activists who analysed the process says also has a lasting impact on MP-MLA LAD schemes as the winners focus their attention to those who voted for them, rather than the entire constituency.
In fact Election Commission, while acknowledging the need of the issue, recommended way back in November 2008, for using Totalizer in EVM for counting in order to avoid booth wise counting, however no effective steps have been taken in this regard for want of government santions.
Who is sitting on Election Commission’s Recommendation for Totaliser?
The ECI, in 2008, recommended to the Ministry of Law and Justice to amend the Election Rules to provide for the use of a totaliser for the counting of votes recorded in EVMs at elections. As per the ECI’s suggestion, “the results of votes polled in a group of 14 EVMs (hence, in 14 polling stations) would be calculated and announced together, in a change from the current practice of counting votes by each polling station. This is based on technological constraints.”
The underlying rationale behind the ECI’s proposal was that the “current” system revealed the voting trends in each polling station, thus leaving the voters in that vicinity open to harassment, intimidation and post-election victimisation.
Prior to the introduction of EVMs, ballot papers could be mixed, wherever it was considered “absolutely necessary” under Rule 59A of the Election Rules in light of “apprehend[ed] intimidation and victimisation of electors”. However, EVMs do not permit this.
The Law Commission further recommended, “ In the appropriate case, where the Election Commission apprehends intimidation and victimisation of electors in any constituency, and it is of the opinion that the votes recorded in the voting machines should be mixed before counting, it may by notification in the Official Gazette, specify such constituency where the returning officer shall use a totaliser for the counting of votes recorded in a group of electronic voting machines”.
The law commission also maintained then that using a totaliser would increase the secrecy of votes during counting, thus preventing the disclosure of voting patterns and countering fears of intimidation and victimisation.
Although the ECI’s proposal was referred to a Parliamentary Committee in 2009, no action was taken on it. In August 2014, the ECI moved the Law Ministry on this issue again. Subsequently in September 2014, the Supreme Court in a PIL in Yogesh Gupta v ECI542 issued directions to the government to issue to clarify why no steps were taken pursuant to the ECI’s 2008 proposals. Noting that the issue had been referred to the Law Commission for consideration, the three-judge bench of the Court asked the government what concrete steps it had taken on the ECI’s suggestions of using a totaliser to prevent (or reduce) instances of intimidation or victimisation.
Moreover, as the ECI has itself clarified, a “totaliser” has already been developed by EVM manufacturers to connect several control units at a time to indicate the total number of votes polled and recorded in the specified number of polling stations. Thus, administratively it is not difficult to collect information about the number of votes polled by each candidate for a whole group of polling stations, thus hiding the pattern of voting in each individual booth.
Citing all the above facts and “reasons”, the Law Commission reiterated and endorsed the “ECI’s suggestion for introducing a totaliser for the counting of votes recorded in EVMs……the Commission proposes to amend Rules.. to empower the ECI to decide when, and in which constituency and polling booths, to employ a totaliser, after taking into consideration the context of the elections and any threats of intimidation or victimisation”.
Why even the Court order on use of Totaliser not implemented yet
Responding to a Public Interest Petition filed by an NGO SP Chetna, working on civil and democratic rights, the High Court of Delhi in 2013 had observed and noted ” that the EC has already recommended to GOI the use of totalizer for ensuring confidentiality of voters and in order to ensure that no vengeance is wrecked by the winning candidate against vote of a particular booth who may have voted against it”.
The NGO also pleaded then to the ECI in a letter on 2013, “votes can be traced to a Block of about 200 Households allocated to a booth and political Parties buy block votes through the Local Goon / Leader who guarantees 90% votes in favour of the highest bidder ……the threat of reprisal/ intimidation keeps most such voters of a booth in line.”
It also maintained “Our research reveals that the local *Goons / Leaders collect the Ration Cards, Pension Papers etc as a security deposit to be returned only if the entire Booth Votes as promised.”
Implications when the vote is not ‘secret’
According to Rajiv Kakria and Anil Sood, founders of SP Chetna, this results in total collapse of the democratic machinery eventually. “Coercion and Intimidation for votes is the direct fall out when the ballot is not secret” and “bulk purchase of Votes on caste, community, and religious lines is real. Can we call it a Secret Ballot?”
According to Rajiv Kakria, booths are captured months before the elections in a bloodless swoop without a bullet being fired. Booth-Wise Result of Constituencies should not be made available to anyone. Elected representatives after getting the booth-wise result of polling, then start blackmailing.”
