Context

• One of the significant features of India’s electoral record has been its progressive betterment on two major counts — in registering eligible citizens as electors, and achieving increased participation of electors in voting. 
• While only 17 per cent were registered and 45 per cent of them turned out to vote in 1951 in India’s first general election, in 2019, India’s latest general election, over 91 per cent of its eligible citizens were registered with 67 per cent of them coming out to vote, which is the highest voter turnout in the nation’s history.
• It is, however, worrying that a third of the eligible voters, a whopping 30 crore people, do not vote. 
• Among the many reasons, including urban apathy and geographical constraints, one prominent reason is the inability of internal migrants to vote for different reasons.

Status of Internal Migration

• According to the 2011 Census, the number of internal migrants stands at 450 million, a 45 per cent surge from the 2001 census. 
• Among these, 26 per cent of the migration (117 million) occurs inter-district within the same state, while 12 percent of the migration (54 million) occurs inter-state. 

Hurdles in Voting

• Individual’s inalienable right to vote is conditioned by a rather strict residency qualification which disenfranchises the migrant population.
• Most migrant voters have voter cards for their home constituency — 78 per cent, according to a 2012 study and most cannot commute to their home states on polling day.
• Although electoral laws let people register at their place of “ordinary residence”, most face difficulties to get residence proof. 
• Many migrant voters may not be as intensively involved in the political affairs and interests in their host locations as they are in their home locations. 

Available Options

• Section 60(c) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 empowers the Election Commission of India, in consultation with the government, to notify “classes” of voters who are unable to vote in person at their constituencies owing to their physical or social circumstances. 
• Once notified, the voters are eligible for the ETPB system (Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System). ETPB is now limited to service voters. The Government should consider extending the ETPB facility to the migrant workers.
• The Election Commission has proposed the use of remote voting for migrant workers wherein a modified version of the existing model of EVMs will be placed at remote polling stations. 
• The Electronic Corporation of India Ltd. has already developed a prototype of a Multi-constituency Remote EVM (RVM) — a modified version of the existing EVM which can handle 72 constituencies in a single remote polling booth. 

Way Forward

• The Supreme Court, in a series of cases, has conclusively interpreted the freedom to access the vote as within the ambit of Article 19(1)(a).
• The Indian migrant worker deserves the secured right to have access to vote through some mechanism.