Context:

Mandate of Election Commission of India (ECI):

• Ensuring that every Indian who is eligible to vote can do so must be a central mission for the ECI.

Current Scenario:

• India currently has over 91.05 crore registered voters and in the 2019 general election, a record 67.4%, i.e 61.36 crore voters, cast their vote.
• One-third, a substantial 29.68 crore, did not cast their vote.

• National Election Study surveys have shown that about 10% of registered voters refrain from voting due to a lack of interest in politics.

Who needs attention now? 

Non Resident Indians

• Only about one lakh NRIs have registered to vote, presumably because voting requires their physical presence in India and of them, about 25,000 voted in the 2019 elections.
• To enable NRIs to exercise their franchise, the government brought in legislation in the previous Lok Sabha to enable voting through authorised proxies. However it lapsed.

Senior Citizens

• Senior citizens face difficulties in casting their vote though they have enough zeal and interest to cast.
• Disabled citizens and those above 80 years were allowed by the ECI to cast their vote by postal ballot keeping in mind the difficulties they face.

• In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Election Commission of India has made it possible for senior citizens above the age of 65 to vote by postal ballot, given that they are at greater risk from exposure to the novel coronavirus.

• However, postal ballots may not minimise the risk of infection and it may be better instead to provide separate voting booths for senior citizens.

Internal migrants

• Internal migrant workers constitute about 13.9 crore as in the Economic Survey of 2017, that is nearly a third of India’s labour force. But they become quasi-disenfranchised, forgotten voters because they cannot afford to return home on election day to choose their representatives.

Current state of migrants

• The novel coronavirus and the subsequent national lockdown brought to centre stage the magnitude of internal migration and hardships that migrant workers endure in their quest for livelihoods.
• The stark indignity that many of them endured on their long march home suggests that they are perceived as being politically powerless.

• Since they do not have a vote where they work, their concerns are easy to ignore in their host State.

Way forward:

• Well-thought-out initiatives that facilitate voting and remove obstacles to voters exercising their franchise must be welcomed.
• There must be the political will to usher in a ‘One Nation One Voter ID’ to ensure ballot portability.

Models before us

• • Does our system enable any form of voter portability that can serve as a model for re-enfranchising migrant workers?
  • Yes. Service voters (government employees) posted away from home can vote through the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS).

• • Classified service voters (e.g., military personnel) can do so through their proxies.

• • The ECI has said that it is testing an Aadhaar-linked voter-ID based solution to enable electors to cast their votes digitally from anywhere in the country.

• To facilitate voting by migrant workers, the ECI could undertake substantial outreach measures using the network of District Collectorates.

• Migrants should be able to physically vote in their city of work based on the address on their existing voter IDs and duration of their temporary stay.

• In an age where banking transactions have gone online seamlessly, it is technologically feasible to record and transfer votes to their respective constituencies without compromising on the credibility of the election process.

Conclusion:

• Voting must be viewed not just as a civic duty but as a civic right.
• For this to happen, the political will must be demonstrated to usher in ‘One Nation One Voter ID’ to ensure native ballot portability and empower the forgotten migrant voter.

• Ensuring that every Indian voter can participate in elections is imperative to ensure a democratically inclusive India.