WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY:
One Nation One Election Bill has been introduced on 17th Dec'24 in Lok Sabha CLIP For it to be passed, 2/3rd majority vote will be required, after Joint Parliamentary Committee has vetted the 322-page report. Before this can happen, the citizens of India have a rare opportunity to discuss election reforms holistically. The reform of
"1N1E" a.k.a. #One-Nation-One-Poll, can be
substituted by another set of reforms with all the claimed benefits and more.
Protagonists of 1N1E or 1N1P need to be educated, but more importantly, we - the citizens - must push for making Indian democracy safe and more vibrant.
In the interdependent
triad of contributors to the progress of the nation: PEOPLE - POLICIES - SYSTEMS -
we should start with the "SYSTEMS" reform because it is
doable with the flick of a pen and it will have a significant and
immediate impact. Moving one log can clear a log jam!
The current election system is such that more honest
and smart candidates likely lose elections and those who bend the rules (or
their party does) likely win elections. Fortunately, today India has the
digital public infrastructure and a flexible Constitution, capable of
amendments, therefore, we can attempt to undertake what is proposed here - a
set of urgent "rules reforms" which we can do before 2026, and "online
voting systems reforms" which can be done during the 2024-2029 time-frame. These reforms can be done
through the existing "democratic system". Most politicians will resist this change for reasons that are too obvious to review. Without public
pressure, the existing legislators likely have no interest to understand and demand the required changes.
The idea of syncing all elections conflicts with
the spirit of the existing federal structure envisaged in the Constitution of
India. If the benefit we are looking for is to cut time and cost of conducting
elections, debate should centre on leveraging the Digital Public
Infrastructure (DPI) we already have.
We know there are monetary and non-monetary costs of conducting elections (1- footnote).
For e.g. the 2024 General Elections were estimated to have cost $14 billion and the 2019 GE were estimated to have
cost USD 7.5 to 10 Billion, i.e. Rs.60K to 80K Crores - of which at least
Rs.50K crores was spent by candidates and their parties and Rs. 9K crores was
Government's share of expenditure. After syncing all elections, i.e. General
Elections, State Elections and Local Government or Panchayat Elections, it is
hard to guess what the total expense will balloon to.
The official declared income of BJP and INC is less
than 10% of the abovementioned election expense figure (Visit Myneta ADR website for all details)! In
other words, the elections are conducted with massive amount of money mobilised
and spent under the table - one can imagine the quid pro quo in such
transactions and the inevitable corruption that ensues. If we stack up the
costs of State level and Panchayat level elections, the total will be
staggering - likely to be few lacs of crore rupees and the quid pro quos
several lacs of crore rupees. The cost of the government employees and security
forces deployed to oversee these elections is invisible. The deployment of
millions of staff, results in lost productivity and loss of school time as
teachers and school resources are extensively requisitioned in organising
elections. Due to logistical reasons, elections in many states stretch over
several weeks!
The non-monetary costs include the adverse effects of governments going into
seizure due to MCC - Model Code of Conduct which gets kicked in ahead of
election dates. The government is not allowed to announce policies and it
cannot roll out plans that may seem to influence the voters.
The dominant BJP and INC national parties have their leaders over stretched due
to perpetual election cycles; the regional parties are not unhappy with the
current situation; they likely view with suspicion the debate over syncing
elections. Check Election Commission of India: ECI recognises 6 or 7 political parties as national parties.
BJP is reputed to win elections because of Modi ji's personal popularity which
made the 2019 Parliament (Lok Sabha) elections look like a Presidential
election. PM Modi has also come to believe that he alone is sufficient to win
all elections. His recent boast in the Parliament (Rajya Sabha) on
9-Feb-23:"एक
अकेला कितनों पे भारी पड़ता है "! PM Modi wants to sync elections
ostensibly to save costs but in his heart, he may be wanting the elections to
become Presidential type.
To tamp down the abovementioned monetary and non-monetary costs, Modi ji has
proposed a debate on "One Nation One Election". The democratic system
envisaged in the Constitution of India requires a five-year term provided the
government has a majority of members in the house, if it loses the majority and
an alternative government cannot be formed, elections have got to be triggered
within a stipulated period of x months. Therefore, this rule will conflict with
the proposition of One Nation One Election as soon as any Government collapses
before x months remain in its 5-year tenure. A constitutional amendment will be
required to compress or stretch the period of tenure that remains in every case
of premature cessation of a Government to sync all elections.
Rather than amend the constitution to accommodate the 1N1P idea, is it not
better to discuss how to make elections less costly and quicker? No one seems
to be debating this question!
Practically, all resident Indians and overseas
Indian citizens, who are eligible voters, today have Aadhaar IDs. Over 1.3
billion (over 99.8% of all adults) Aadhaar Ids generated.
WHAT WE NEED TO DO
Aadhaar should be passed as a security bill - at
present it is emasculated by the order of the SCI because Aadhaar was passed as
a Money Bill - Modi Government was scared so it bypassed obtaining voting in
Rajya Sabha by legislating Aadhaar as a Money Bill. SCI has therefore,
curtailed mandatory applications of Aadhaar to financial benefit (transactions)
schemes or tax compliance issues like PAN linkage with Aadhaar. (Myths about mandatory use of Aadhaar and risks of sharing
Aadhaar number). Those who apprehend risks due to Aadhaar linkage
with voter ID should read: Common misconceptions about Aadhaar.
First, the past lapse of passing Aadhaar as a money
bill has to be rectified so that necessary legislative support is provided for
allowing Aadhaar to be used in non-monetary applications like the security and
ID authentication, required in our voting system. The latter proposition is
certainly likely to find acceptance with all parties - provided BJP and GOI
make their intentions explicit.
With today's DPI in India, it is very easy to
conduct electronic online voting. First step, as mentioned above, is to get the
legislative support to mandate linking the Voter Card (proof of
citizenship) with Aadhaar Id (proof of Id) - this
will ensure there are no duplicates in the voter database AND all voters are
authenticated every time they vote. This process will also include the
process of syncing names on the two cards - it is estimated that more than 80%
of the people have mismatching names between their Aadhaar and Voter ID
cards.
Without a data protection act, it would have been
justifiably considered objectionable to link Aadhaar with Voter ID. Recently
THE DIGITAL PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION ACT, 2023 has been notified in the Gazette of India (11-Aug-23). Voting as we
all know follows the "secret ballot" code. Computer program can be
written such that no one can find out the identity of a voter without
authorisation and now the notified Data Protection Act will (hopefully) curb
mala fide authorisation to any agent of the government. In the voting
application program, it is necessary to ensure that at the time of voting, the
voter's biometrics be authenticated to prevent proxy voting i.e. it is
necessary to ensure that a person in wrongful possession of a Voter card (Voter
ID credentials) is not voting. In this application VIRTUAL ID (VID) for
authentication cannot serve the purpose. VID is issued by UIDAI and it is meant
to prevent profiling - i.e. pulling data from different applications databases
in which Aadhaar is seeded. Since we want to deduplicate individuals
having multiple Voter cards and authenticate a voter every time, it is
necessary to link Aadhaar. Read about VID here.
HOW WILL THE PROPOSED ONLINE
VOTING SYSTEM WORK
Online (INTERENT) voting can enable citizens to
vote from anywhere in the country. One of the reasons for "low voter
turnout" is migrant population - huge number of people are not available
in their constituency on the day of voting. At the time of doing online voting,
as already mentioned, the voter would be asked to submit biometric
authentication - this ensures the eligible person is voting - multiple time
voting can be allowed in the time window announced for voting - only the last
vote will count. Those who do not have biometrics submission device will need
to visit any ECI authorised mobile services centre or any bank branch to vote -
for a small fee of Rs. 2 - 10 (which would be reimbursed to the agency by ECI
online - citizen will not pay for the first time). There will be no
need to set up booths and requisition millions of teachers for election duty at
the time of voting. (See linked notes below - current cost to ECI is
above Rs.100 per vote cast).
The above arrangement will drop the election costs drastically (by over 90%) -
logistics will be highly simplified. Migrant workers, estimated to be between
10% to 20% of total voters, who are not present in their constituency on the
days of voting, will be able to exercise their franchise. In 2019 LS Elections,
ONLY 67% of the eligible voters actually voted - in Bombay the voting turnout
was only 55% - with online anytime-anywhere voting facilities, the polling
percentage would have been higher. Areas without Internet access, are already
being served by satellite linked (through VSATs) CSCs (Common Services
Centres); despite this, if there are pockets not served by CSCs then ECI will
have to improvise suitable "CSCs".
BENEFITS OF ONLINE VOTING
With successful introduction of online voting,
India will not only save enormous cost and time, it could derive many other
benefits. Voting participation
will improve SIGNIFICANTLY as all of the migrant workers will be able
to vote from wherever they happen to be on the dates of polling; the sheer convenience will pull many more voters.
OTHER MAJOR REFORMS THAT WILL BECOME FEASIBLE DUE
TO ONLINE VOTING:
O1.
Two-round system (TRS)
of voting in place of the FPTP (First-Past-The-Post) currently
followed: If TRS is adopted, in the first round if the top candidate fails to
secure 50%+ votes, a run-off election round will get triggered. In a modified
TRS, in the run-off round, only the top two candidates (instead of all candidates having polled above x% votes) will be allowed to participate.
With online voting, the cost of conducting the TRS elections will NOT be a
barrier and democratic representation will become stronger as we will
ensure that the winner has 50%+ votes. TRS will overcome a lot of maladies.
A major defect in the FPTP system due to which opposition parties with similar
ideologies, but one which is opposite of the winning party's ideology, lose out
as their votes get split and the "majority" party wins despite
obtaining fewer votes (i.e. less than the combined votes of the opposition
parties). In FPTP system, the winning party can win disproportionate number of
seats compared to its share of votes. For e.g. in 2019 LS Elections, BJP won
303 or 55.8% seats (=303/543) even though the party obtained only 37.36% of the
polled votes. [The NDA alliance, which included BJP, won 353 seats with 45% of
votes]. Net effect of FPTP system is that a Government can be formed by a party
formation with an ideology that is rejected by the majority -this is the case
at present. With TRS, this situation would not arise even if parties with
opposing but similar ideologies (with respect to the dominant party's ideology)
are not united in a prepoll alliance - because in the second round, the split
votes will tend to coalesce in support of the only candidate remaining in the
contest! [Unlike in USA and UK, where there are two dominant parties, in India
for most seats, the contest is among multiple parties, therefore, the votes get
split much more and the winning candidate often has a vote share well below
50%. FPTP thus has serious pernicious effects of "unrepresentative
democracy" in countries where the elections are fought with many parties
in the fray. Ref: Note on TRS vs FPTP for India.
O2.
Referendums can be introduced. Based
on legislatures listing worthy issues for referendums, either quarterly or
half-yearly or yearly referendums could be held at all levels of Government-
National, State or Local Urban or Rural Governments. Referendums will
make the Governments more responsive as people will get a greater voice.
Legislators will tend to be more accountable.
Gradually the country can refine the election
processes and graduate to having issue-based referendums, annually or
half-yearly, like Switzerland and other Western democracies have.
THE URGENT REFORM OF ELECTION
(POLITICAL) FUNDING, EXPENSE AND TRANSPARENCY
The five specific issues we should debate are categorised under two groups;
there are three issues related to money and two
related to transparency and accountability.
1. FUNDING AND EXPENSES RELATED
F1.1 Candidate expenses: The per candidate election expense cap
must go - especially as there is no cap on the Political Party expenses. For
MLAs and MPs - at present the limit is Rs. 28 lacs to 95 lacs only.
This preposterous rule places independent candidates (poor or billionaires -
doesn't matter) or candidates of newbie and not-so-rich parties, at a
tremendous disadvantage. The expense cap is only for candidates - there is no
limit on expenses a party may incur in the candidate's constituency - in many
constituencies, experts have calculated the expenses range between Rs.10 to
Rs.70 crores (in MLA or MP contests). At present, parties disclose election
expenses to match their income which is estimated to be less than 10% of their
real expenses. This means 90% of expenses are off the books. So, the rules need
to be modified in a way that candidates and parties can mobilise funds and
spend legally. Present system forces both spending and mobilising to be done
illegally - and it compels virtually every candidate to lie on oath about the
real expenses incurred. And in this process honest and successful individuals
who have no black money to fight elections, either don't enter politics or if
they do, they likely lose elections to those who outspend them (illegally) -
one example easy to cite is that of Nandan Nilekani (a technocrat billionaire)
who contested for a MP's seat, on a Congress ticket and lost to a BJP opponent,
in Bangalore - a city considered to be the IT Capital of India! No reform of any
kind seems more important than the amendment of existing political
(election) funding and expense limit rules that clearly diminish the
chances of good, honest and successful people from getting into elected
positions. When honest and smart people get into positions of power,
one can expect to see reforms and policies that actually favour building a
vibrant democracy - one that provides more voice to its citizens and also
drives the future progress of India.
F1.2 Political funding: NO
DONATION to a political party or a candidate should be hidden - there ought to
be 100% transparency; anonymous political bonds must be abolished; the bonds
tend to go to the ruling party (and it is not hidden from the ruling party,
rather it is hidden from the opposition parties and the public). There
should be a high cap (order of 50 or 100 crore rupees) on individual or
corporate donations, including "permitted" foreign entity's
donations. However, above a certain amount of donation, say Rs.5 lacs, there
should be an obligation for a complete and detailed disclosure of donor's
involvement in ANY government project which is ongoing or which is likely to
start; also, of any action that Government has taken against the donor or the
donor's brush with law. All donations must be listed on a website mandated by
the ECI.
F1.3 State funding and resources
support: Each party and
candidate must publish their statement of objectives - and be asked to debate;
these moderated debates should be on State-paid TV time and on all State-owned
platforms which may syndicate the debate feeds to private channels -
it is a big flaw in our system that today, candidates are not asked questions -
related to new promises, public issues or old promises they may have made! The
expensive rallies and physical meetings which involve extravagant preparations
and costs will automatically decline if State-sponsored air time is made
available - and, more importantly, candidates without monetary resources will
be able to communicate with the electorate and give responses to researched
questions of expert moderators. The televised debates could be recorded
and catalogued on the ECI portal so that voters can access the same anytime
(with translated scripts in different languages). Candidate
accountability and a more informed electorate are very important in any
democracy!
2. TRANSPARENCY RELATED
T2.1 Candidate disclosures: Candidate's
disclosures of his/her qualifications, assets, liability,
income criminal cases faced or ongoing and business transactions with
Government departments or public enterprises in the form of an
affidavit should be published on the ECI website (this is not being done
for items mentioned in italics) AND number of complaints or
challenges received by the ECI against claims in the candidate's affidavit, and
those ECI has verified, along with the details should also be published.(this
is not being done today - in fact complaints to ECI are ignored - it verifies
nothing). ECI says it has no resources to investigate nor refer such
cases to State agencies - this deficiency in the transparency system needs to
be fixed by requiring and enabling ECI to settle complaints & challenges
and regularly publish the status of its findings.
T2.2 Party functioning transparency: Political Parties, particularly the "National
Political Parties" so recognised by ECI, should be subjected to three
rules -
i) they must be brought under the purview of RTI Act,
ii) they must publish their manifesto before each election AND
iii) they must publish their inner party constitutional framework and the audit
report of its framework by ECI - it doesn't matter if the framework is
"democratic" or "autocratic" or "dynastic"; ECI's
audit stamp will merely confirm that the party is following the published
framework. This is like the public disclosure a company makes before a public
issue - ECI's stamp of audit merely confirms that the party practices are found
to be in conformity with its stated constitutional framework - it is not an
endorsement of any claims of the party being meritorious - which is a matter of
voter's (informed) judgment..
CONCLUSION
To sum up, two sets of reforms are discussed above.
The set of urgent reforms
related to money and transparency are capable of being implemented before the
next General Election in 2024 - this could happen provided there is sufficient
public pressure and / or a political will. These easy-to-do electoral reforms will
help in putting honest and smart people in positions of power (as legislators).
The other high-tech reforms for making voting online anytime-anywhere and
conducting referendums could be attempted by the legislators elected in the
next General Elections (hopefully smarter and more honest), in five years: in
2024-2029. The high-tech reforms will make
our democracy far more responsive than it is today; besides, the reforms will
also save huge amounts of money (official and unofficial, private or public)
and time we spend on electing MPs, MLAs, Corporators and Panchs! We can
forget 1N1P and talk about the above reforms instead.
Epilogue:
1. Public pressure is also required to have the Election Commission of India (ECI) conduct free and fair elections; ECI must respond to queries and complaints, manage and act against MCC violations. Serious violations and anomalies have been reported by Citizens Commission on Elections (CCE). If we cannot make the archaic EVMs, and fraud-prone post-poll processes, safe with the required tweaks, we ought to revert to paper ballots to save our democracy (the tweaks are simple, read my Nov'24 blog)
2. After having been in information
systems-designing-developing-deploying business for many decades, and having
seen India's Digital Public Infrastructure, I have no doubt that we in India have the capacity and
readiness to implement the online voting system described above. See below the
transaction volumes we have crossed with two systems (UPI and Aadhaar, no other
big country has equivalent systems); no country is close to achieving these
volumes, forget beating these performances, USA, China and EU included:
The prefixes O (Online), F (Financial) and T (Transparency) in the numbered items above, are for referencing in Google Form.
