In India elections are no less than a grand festival. People may be different by religion, caste, class or origin of different states but elections make them one and the same. It does not differentiate a voter basis the factors as mentioned here. This great Indian festival is celebrated many a times even in a year due to multi-layer governance system. In between Lok Sabha (National Level) also known as House of People or Lower House and Panchayat (Grass Root Level) we have additional layers of Vidhan Sabha/ Parishads (State Level Governments) and Municipal Corporations/Councils (City Level). We the people of India keep voting to elect representatives for one or another layer of Governance. These is are the times when one may encounter an intense discussion between two people from two completely different economic class. At road side tea junction, you may find a rickshaw driver, a plumber, a marketing executive, an investment banker, discussing about who shall win. If you encounter such incidents please be sure it’s time for elections in the country.
Those who may not be aware of the electoral scenario in India may find it unique in many manners. We’ve a multi-party system and practically there cannot be any control on number of candidates/contestants. Anyone even not belonging to a party can also contest independently and even win elections. Here election are not won basis candidates’ capability or education level, it’s won basis caste, religion, locality, or any other agenda on which people may be misguided easily. The irony of the system is that even if a candidate getting only 10% votes can win the election and represents 100% of the population even after being rejected by 90% who did not vote in his/her favor. Let the left or right wing supporter’s debate and decide whether it’s right or wrong. For me whatever be the case, we are guided by our constitution and as per same it is right and law of the land.
For many voters like me the most important aspect is fairness of the method. Even if it comes at a huge cost to the exchequer, we are not bothered, but should we not think about the cost? The spends by Government on elections is increasing every time given the challenge of conducting election in a manner that each and every voter can cast their votes and the parties not winning elections are also satisfied that the elections are conducted in the fairest manner possible.
To understand the electoral system and Government spends to keep it live and running let’s look at published figures for Lok Sabha with respect to money spent on conducting election.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha election ~ INR 3,500 Cr was spent for conducting elections which includes Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), travelling and lodging expenses of security personnel, election staff, usage of infrastructure and many more. With conservative inflation figure of just 6% p.a. also, spends are estimated at ~ INR 4,700 Cr.
For those who may not be aware of geographical spreads and people representation in the largest democracy of the world, summary of the constituency wise spread across states is presented here.
We’ve a total of 552 seats in Lok Sabha, which comprises of 530 seats in states, 20 seats in UTs and 2 seats (Anglo-Indian) are nominated by the President. The states contributing to large representation to the house are Uttar Pradesh (80), Maharashtra (48), West Bengal (42), Bihar (40), Tamil Nadu (39), Madhya Pradesh (29), Karnataka (28), Gujarat (26) and Rajasthan (25). While earlier Andhra Pradesh had 35 seats but after split 15 seats went to Telangana. The sum total of seats in above 9 states is 392, clearly representing that a party getting majority in above states can comfortably form a Government. The detailed statistics state wise can be found on https://loksabha.nic.in/members/StateWiseStatisticalList.aspx
The details about profession of the elected members is also available in Government database. Out of 550 elected members the profession details of only 246 candidates are available on Lok Sabha database, I assume remaining had no profession or politics was the profession. We had 77 political/social workers, 44 agriculturists/farmers, 28 business person, 12 industrialists, 18 educationists/teachers/professors, 10 advocates, 6 engineers, 5 teachers, 4 builders and 1 or 2 from each profession i.e. sports, artist, poet, civil servant, scientist, film producer etc. etc. etc. Such a varied representation but in a skewed manner, but we’ve ~ 305 members with no other profession/ politics only as profession. It may also mean that they have almost no connect or experience of job, business or public life. A total of 8251 candidates fought the election which essentially means that in each constituency ~ 15 candidates were contesting.
The above was numerical aspect of how seats are split across states, let’s now look at the economic aspect (on paper) of the elections as well. As per election commission’s rule a candidate cannot have unlimited spends for contesting election and a limit has been fixed for all expenses such as posters, banners, vehicles, prints and electronic advertisements, public meetings, tents etc. etc. etc. It is mandatory for all candidates to open an account in bank for the expenses, the payment of which should be made through cheque. For the election in 2019 it is decided that each candidate can spend up to INR 7,000,000/-.
The simple computation of total spends for similar number of candidates makes it to INR 5,776 Cr. In addition to this there is a widespread unaccounted money spent on various heads which are not allowed under the law i.e. distribution of money, liquor or any other item and bribe for the purpose of influencing voters etc which can’t be even counted and not easy to control. While we may not be an structural solutions to curb spends by candidates except by reducing the limits, but we can definitely have structural solution to reduce the spends by Government on conducting the future elections.
In terms of evolution, we’ve come long way from paper ballot to electronic voting (EVM based voting) but are we truly electronic? The straight answer is no. The way votes are recorded today may be electronic but not the way these are casted or communicated to ECI database for counting or storing. While the recent dissent of a section of parties started believing that Electronic Voting Machines are rigged and to the satisfaction of people Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) was implemented.
Let’s look at our voting journey:
While all the database of voters is digitized completely by ECI today but the way it’s recorded or verified is also required to be digitized. This shall be able to fulfil the dreams of digital India in true aspect. If the government of a country can be elected electronically then digitalization shall not be a dream anymore. There are school of thoughts about the country never be able to digitalize the election, usage of the same isn’t possible by many voter who can’t read or write. What we need to understand that not being able to read/write does not make people mentally handicapped. If ECI can assume/decide that a voter can reach voting centres at their own cost, irrespective of the distance of the same from their house and can press a button to vote for their representative assumption of everyone casting votes electronically isn’t wrong. People can caste the votes the way ECI asks them to cast.
So to quote one of the simplest alternative can be asking voters to vote online. To do the same each user needs to cast their vote in a way so that the identity isn’t compromised, authentication of the user is done as per the database, the votes are recorded and voter is marked having casted their votes. The whole system also needs to be a fool proof system to avoid any failure during any process. The electoral system and election commission has evolved over a period of time and empowered to conduct the election in the manner they want to. A potential system of fully electronic voting can only start from registration stage. Let’s look at the way voters are registered today and the physical methods may be done away with:
Once voter is registered through the above method, one of the unique authentication method shall always be available with ECI for voter identification/authentication. Once authentication method is registered, an authentic and worth e-voting system is needed. An e-voting system should be able to perform all the activities in compliance with set of standards established by regulators, and should be capable of dealing successfully with requirements associated with security, accuracy, integrity, speed, privacy, auditability, accessibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability and sustainability.
The electronic voting technology may be including punched cards, optical scans and specialized voting kiosks (including self-contained direct-recording electronic voting systems). It can also involve transmission of votes via telephones, computer networks, ATM servers or the Internet.
With the unique authentication method recorded, one of the below mentioned methods can be used for voting:
The typical doubt or question anyone can raise is w.r.t. above methods could be related to confidence level in the whole process, privacy of the vote having an idiot proof and fraud proof system. All this is possible by replicating connectivity/communication methods used in e-commerce, financial transactions etc. The methodologies used are amongst the most secure ones. Let’s look at a simple method of API (Application Programming Interface) based connectivity. The classic example of API usage are fetching the travel routes from Google or fetching/debiting of balance from wallets by online cab aggregators. Let’s look at the method from voting perspective:
The three layer API connectivity method may help keep customer interface simple and customizable. The same can work on a desktop web app, mobile app, ATM Kiosk, third party utility app or SSID based input & response. The process layer may process the information being pulled and pushed basis authentication method and system layer can act and respond to the instructions. Multi-layer architecture can also be built up depending upon level & complexity of processes and connecting ports of intermediaries.
With every technology replacing manual intervention has proved that it saves cost & time. As per fundamentals of economics people and material are two critical resources. Adoption of latest technology helps in saving costs on both the heads. The money save in the above process is the hard earned money of people collected by Government. Even if government starts working on this in 2019, they can save ~ INR 7,000 Cr in 2024. A better use of the same is need of the hour for a country like India which is developing at the fastest pace, hence efficiency and productivity in each and every process is must. While there are very few countries which took steps to make Government elections completely online, the day is not far when all the countries would be adapting the same.
Would highly appreciate your critical feedback on my thoughts.