India is the world’s largest democracy. As per latest statistics courtesy of the Election Commission of India, 814.5 million people are eligible to vote, a number which is 2.5 times the entire population of the next largest democracy in the world, the United States. As such, when a significant percentage of the population does not vote, it really undermines the power of democracy as an institution.
When the first ever democratic elections happened in 1951-52, the voter turnout was 61%. At that time, India was no longer the golden bird it used to be once. More than 90% of the population was poor, the literacy rate was an abysmal 35% and the polling stations were far and few in between. Yet people drove out in huge numbers to cast their votes and feel a little bit empowered. For once, after generations of being a subject to the so called “glorious” Mughals (who are extremely overrated as rulers) and the so called “sophisticated” Britons, the common man had found his voice. Keeping these things in mind, a turnout of 61% was not at all bad, for comparison, the digital social media driven 2012 US Presidential Elections had a 57.5% turnout.
Yet, sometime between 1952 and 2009, the common man lost his voice again. The 2009 elections merely had a 48.74% voter turnout. It has improved since, but the fact remains that low voter turnout has always plagued the country as a democracy. Let us explore why people do not vote as often.
One of the major reasons for people not being able to vote is that their name is not available in the polling list at all. This is a clear example of one of the many administrative failures of the country. People stand in queues all day only to reach the booth and find out that their name isn’t even listed. This means that the percentage turnout at the booth is much higher than the percentage that actually voted. This seriously demotivates people from even going to the booths because, what’s the point?
The second reason for low voter turnout is the controversial practice of booth capturing. Here, armed loyalists of a particular political persuasion capture booths, get rid of the security in a typical dramatic fashion and force anyone who comes to vote for their own party. This raises two problems. One, people do not come out to vote due to fear and two, those who do are forced to vote for a particular party which goes against the very idea of democracy in the first place.
The third reason is lesser known than the previous two, and it is the phenomenon of internal migration. Youth, usually in the age group of 18-28 years is almost always on the move. Take me for example. I was born and brought up in Jharkhand (Bihar before 2000 for you nitpickers), but at the time of the 2014 elections, I used to live in Karnataka. Hence, I could not vote. It happens to a lot of other people too. After around 25-26 years of age, a person is more likely to settle in a particular place, and get everything registered there. This can be seen in the demographic that most people that do vote are middle aged.
To curb this problem of low voter turnout, the most obvious solution is to make people aware of their rights. To make them realize that not everyone in the world has this right to suffrage like they do. To make them realize that it is important to exercise their rights. However, only educating the masses isn’t the plain and simple way out. More needs to be done from the administrative side than the voters side.
For starters, voting should be made more voter friendly. Registrations should be digitized and people should be intimated beforehand if their name is missing from the polling list so that they can take necessary steps to get it on the list. Additionally, said necessary steps should also be easy and free of the bureaucratic bottlenecks that have plagued the system for an eternity.
Proper security measures should be taken to stop booth capturing, especially in the rural areas. This has been stopped to a large extent by the introduction of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) so that the goons won’t know who exactly you voted for. Polling booths should be more localized and people should have the ability to vote from an alternate booth if need be. This will also mean that college students would be able to vote without any hassle.
This isn’t an easy task though. Let’s not forget that 814.5 million people are eligible to vote. As such, handling individual issues would require a humongous database. Thankfully, the IT infrastructure of the country is pretty stable and seems suited to handle such a large operation. At this stage, I’d like to remain optimistic and hope that these measures will be taken, maybe slowly but steadily, and people will realize the true power of democracy by taking a part in it.
I’m not eligible to comment on the Indian election system but in Europe apathy, distrust or dislike of candidates and too many local elections are reasons.
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Is that so in Europe as well? Distrust is widespread here too but I didn’t mention it in the post because it is too obvious a point.
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Never disdain the obvious SG
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Haha true. Although distrust in the system is worthy of its own full fledged post. I’ll do it soon.
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Looking forward to it – don’t make too many enemies
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I won’t. I may seem a bit headstrong on the surface but if you get to know me I’m really a very amicable guy.
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and a bright one, I’d say
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Thanks. 😀
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Another worthy article churned out by you.
I will though partially disagree with a point of yours. I have seen hoards of people those who have migrated from the rural areas go to their native places whenever there’s an election.
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True. And that is a very interesting demography. You see, such rural folk travel back to their hometowns to vote, but the same cannot be said for middle class students/salarymen. Either they don’t get leaves to travel, or they just plain don’t care.
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It’s plain truth that the so called literary illiterates don’t give a damn and this is pretty rampant in metros. They would rather rejoice it being a holiday (most companies do give half a day leave)
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Yes, and I tried to bring it to notice through this post of mine. I figured if the process gets easier for these hedonistic privileged people, then probably they’ll come out to vote.
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Well written. I didn’t think before that point 3 will be a problem.
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Thanks. Well it did happen to me and a lot of my friends and it is an underlooked aspect. Wish more people realized that.
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I guess one more reason can be there are no good candidates and many people choose the NOTA option.
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but it still counts as a turnout because they had to be at the polling booth to cast NOTA.
Still, That being said you have raised a very valid point. If the people do not like any of the candidates there should be the NOTA option available in all elections.
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One of the best essays I’ve ever read. Reblogged!
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Thanks Tanushka. Means a lot. 🙂
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Here in the US, our recent election has had serious repercussions (depending on personal views) from the voter turn out. Everyone I knew did not like either candidate, so instead of voting they didn’t at all. I felt obligated to vote, even if it wasn’t for one of the popular ones.
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Well done. I am glad you exercised your right to vote in spite of the candidates.
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Absolutely! I think of how I am privileged to be able to vote, as a woman. The things women went through to make it an equal system (though still not perfect). One of the latest reasons, I hear, that people dont vote is because they believe the system is rigged. There is a lot of chatter going on over here about how Russia influenced/rigged the election. I don’t know much about it because it is quite exhausting keeping up with these things.
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Yeah it gets pretty overwhelming and depressing to keep up with such sort of things. It is quite similar to “booth capturing” as I mentioned in my post, not same in execution but the concept is the same.
Personally though, I don’t think the elections were rigged. The US democracy has a lot of loopholes and Trump just got lucky being in the right place at the right time.
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So many loopholes!!! The average American, middle class, has a hard time because of these loopholes. We are always getting screwed for and by the 1%. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow the election was rigged (by anyone), but I don’t dwell on it. The system here needs a serious overhaul. Other countries hate us, when most of us don’t agree with a lot of what is going on. I hope they know that not everyone living here wants the same things the government does. It is hard to make a change as far gone as it is, though. Maybe in time, it will get better.
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That’s so true. It’s just not right to hate the citizens for what their government does, even if it is a democratically elected one.
Anyway, let’s remain hopeful and see what the future holds for us.
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Yes!
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You are talking about getting digitized and you know what I had applied for the voter id card through the online site of election commision of India. It has been a year now and there is not a single change in my application status( still in processing mode).
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LOL Yes even digitization has its own demerits in our glorious country. All I’m trying to say is that we have the capability of handling issues like yours, but the appalling apathy of the bureaucracy always brings things to a head, regardless of digitization.
You should get in touch with an agent (preferably Javed bhai or Irfan bhai). 😀 He’ll take some money but will get the job done.
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Yes, will have to do that only now.🙄
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Yes, yes. It’s a shame you couldn’t vote in this year’s election though.
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Yes🙄 And I was not always available at home last year and in addition to that this online glitch.🙄
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Good job, SG. I see quite a number of similarities between our countries in as far as elections are concern. I just hope we keep the momentum we’re on.
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Thanks. Most Democratic third world countries do have so many similarities.
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Well expressed
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Good point about young people being on the move and that affecting the turnout. I hadn’t thought of that reason!
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India seems quite a curious country. I look forward to visiting someday. The sheer population size would make the simplest task quite an uphill task. But like you said,, adequate IT infrastructure should help overcome this problem and India seems to be doing well in that sector.
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As a US citizen, there’s actually a write-in option for us if your candidate isn’t on the list.
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I think we should have that system here too.
P. S. – This is one of the areas where our voting system is better than the west, we have machines for voting here and don’t use the old pen and paper method. 😀
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Neat!
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