ECI - Restoring credibility

Elections in India have always been a grand affair by virtue of being the world's largest democracy. And with the advent of social media it has become even grander.

Although I think it has become a cliched term to laud Indian elections as the biggest democratic exercise while itself the process is not smooth or seamless by any stretch.  And for these glitches one is left wondering how error-proof this whole process is. Infact, these headlines have been so over-used that they are now starting to be meaningless and hollow words. 

Trust Issues

Here is what I think are the key problems with the election process - 

Right from the start of the cycle of voter registration - the process is riddled with flaws. 

• Why on the voter list there are so many discrepancies:
• People find their names missing;
• Often many of the details is wrong - like the name is correct but picture is of someone else; D.o.B is wrong; address is wrong. The Chief Polling Officer (CPO) technically can disallow the person to vote on these grants. Only if you are fortunate the CPO may allow you to vote but only after you have shown 3-4 Id Proofs. You get the idea!
• It's worth asking why this basic step of conducting an election - having an updated list of voters has not been smoothened out yet. 

• Why is the office to correct names on the voting list not open throughout the year and opens only a few weeks before the election?
• Why can a candidate contest from two seats? 
• And why can he even contest while in jail (even though not convicted) - but at the same time a voter cannot vote in more than one constituency and definitely cannot vote if imprisoned - convicted or not.
  
  It is hard to understand the rationale why the founding fathers added this clause in our constitution. It seems to inadvertently grant voters a lower status. Economically speaking - the money spent to conduct a re-election after a candidate forgoes one of the two seats he/she won comes from taxpayers' money and it by no means is a judicious use.
• This is probably the most contentious issue off late - lack of transparency on EVMs.
  
  
  EVMs cannot be gotten a hold off to be independently researched for vulnerabilities within India and there’s no chance of it going abroad. There was a case where a US university professor was almost deported from the Delhi airport so cause he had earlier published a research paper calling out the vulnerabilities in EVMs (technically his Visa was downgraded to a tourist visa so he couldn't do any research).
  

  

     News link - http://archive.indianexpress.com/story-print/723897

  
  
  
  
  
  

If it is infallible as claimed then it should be open for research. This insistence on not to be allowed to taken abroad for research purposes and check for security flaws only in presence of Election officials raises eyebrows and is not a ringing endorsement of it's security features.

P.S - That professor has a free course on Coursera where he talks about his experience and explains his doubts.

https://www.coursera.org/lecture/digital-democracy/bonus-deport-on-arrival-t8uTx

• Another big issue is how the election campaigns are funded. The legalization of anonymous electoral bonds is such a farce in light of when every cash transaction of the citizen is tracked and above a certain limit you have to provide an Aadhaar card. But for the candidates people/companies can donate "anonymously" without any check on the identity. This is such a dark spot of our election process and raises uncomfortable questions.

Rebuilding Trust

I deeply admire the ECI's work in bringing some sort of order and process to how the elections are now conducted. It is much better than the earlier days where booth capturing, violence and voter intimidation was widespread. Efforts of Chief Election Commissioners like T.N Seshan and M.S Gill are to be credited for ushering these positive changes.

For starters these two steps should be taken -

• ECI considered to be autonomous in itself needs to be given more teeth and it should use those powers on candidates irrespective of the political party affiliation.
  
• ECI should be more proactive and fast. In the age of viral tweets and videos - ECI cannot sit on an incendiary speech or statement for 3 days, then conduct an investigation for another 7 days and then announce a warning notice or a slap on the wrist and all this while the person was busy campaigning. It is a challenge but to bring some sense of dignity and cleaning up the discourse in election campaign speeches ECI has to start acting sternly and swiftly.
  
• Now with different govt. issued documents floating around like Pan Card, Aadhaar, Voter ID linking all citizens - it has to figure out how to use them to streamline its voter registration process and provide an easy way to rectify those mistakes rather than running around babus in person.

I'm afraid if nothing gets done in these directions - we will keep seeing cliched headlines every 5 years and an occasional op-ed every now and then lamenting the legitimacy of the process.