Times campaign on Lost Votes: Missing — a third of our democracy

In the 2014 general elections, 280 million Indians who had a vote — over 18 years of age and with their names in the electoral rolls — did not vote. No other democracy on this planet even has as many voters. In the US, the world’s second largest democracy, 183 million were registered to vote in the 2016 presidential elections. Just as telling is the fact that the 20 most democratic countries in the world (as ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit) had a combined registered voter base of about 282 million in their last national elections; they include such large countries as Germany, UK, Spain and South Korea. So, losing out on 280 million votes is not just a few lost votes, it’s like ignoring the collective voice of 20 democratically vibrant nations.

Pause for a moment to think about just how large a number that is and what it means to have so many not voting. They constituted about a third of the 834 million registered to vote in 2014. No party came even close to winning as many votes. BJP, which got the largest number of votes, had just under 172 million, Congress 107 million. So the single-largest party in the elections was really the Non-Voters Party, almost as big as the two largest national parties combined. What could be a bigger tragedy in a democracy?

But why did so many not vote? One widely held perception is that they couldn’t care less. But is that really true? Or is it because many or most of them couldn’t vote? Think about what it takes to vote. You have to be of eligible age, you have to be registered on the electoral rolls and, most importantly, you have to be physically present where you are registered on polling day to be allowed to vote. And that’s where the rub lies.

To make your vote mobile, support the petition at www.lostvotes.com

We are, by all accounts, a nation on the move. Census data makes that abundantly clear. As of 2011, close to 454 million Indians were classified in the census as migrants — citizens who were not living where they were born. Unfortunately, the census has not yet released age-wise data on migration, but it does tell us that of these 454 million, 46 million moved for jobs, 224 million — almost all of them women — because of marriage, and over 4 million for business. It is safe to assume that almost all of them would be of voting age. Then there were over 8 million who migrated for education. Again, an overwhelming majority would be of voting age.




Of the 454 million internal migrants, nearly 21 million had been in their latest place of residence for less than a year and another 72 million for under four years. The chances are a sizeable chunk of them would not be registered to vote where they currently reside. That’s tens of millions of lost votes.

Many consumer services have adjusted to the reality of Indians on the move. Your phone number moves with you, as does your bank account. Your Aadhaar number remains the same whether you live in Agartala or Ahmedabad. So why doesn’t our vote — the fundamental right to choose our representatives — move with us? You could be in Kozhikode doing an MBA at the IIM. Or you could be in a job that keeps you on the move every year or two. Is it realistic to expect you to deregister yourself in your home town and register where you happen to be temporarily, only to go through the whole process again a year or so down the line? Today, the technology exists to make it possible for people to vote from remote locations with adequate safeguards to ensure there is no foul play. So why not use it?




Our netas have decided that NRIs should have the right to vote by proxy; they are Indians after all. Also, armed service personnel and government officials away on polling duty are entitled to postal ballots — and rightly so. But that same consideration should be extended to every Indian, regardless of where she or he lives. Yes, there are those who are too lazy or apathetic to walk a few blocks to cast their vote, but what about the many millions who want to vote but are deprived by circumstance — and a system frozen in time — of this very basic democratic right. At last count, there were just over 13 million NRIs worldwide. The number of voters in the armed services in the last LS elections was about 1.2 million. These numbers are tiny compared to the hundreds of millions of internal migrants. And let’s not forget that it’s actually quicker and cheaper for NRIs in many cities — such as Dubai, Singapore and Bangkok — to fly to India than it is for Indians to travel from one part of the country to another.




Consider the consequences of these millions of lost votes. From the point of view of the underprivileged, the vote is one of the few things — if not the only one — that places them on a par with the well-off. Losing this deprives them of their sense of equality and empowerment. The overwhelming presence of women among migrants means there is also a gender skew to the lost votes. Finally, there is also the real danger of unscrupulous people stepping in to vote for somebody who is not around on polling day in his/her registered constituency.

The Times of India believes that Indians on the move within the country are as entitled to their franchise as those living abroad. The Lost Votes campaign will submit a petition to the Election Commission and our netas to make it possible for every Indian to vote irrespective of where he or she may be temporarily located. If we have the political and administrative will, today’s world certainly has the technological way to make it possible.


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