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Election management and absentee electors

Following the 2007 elections to the Gujarat Assembly, the questions that arise are: in what manner did the Election Commission (EC) plan the work, what were the special initiatives taken, and what are the lessons learnt.

The elections were free of any major untoward event, and barring a few pre-poll clashes and polling day incidents, the entire period of 73 days from the date of announcement to the date of counting passed off peacefully. Gujarat has not had any serious election-related violence in the past either. Why then did the EC decide on a two-phase poll, for only the second time in the seven instances in which elections to the Gujarat Assembly were held since 1985? Multi-phase polling had to be resorted to because as in Uttar Pradesh, in Gujarat too there was a huge number of ADS (Absentee, Duplicate and Shifted) electors. Numbering 28.63 lakh, the ‘shifted’ and ‘absent’ electors alone accounted for 7.79 per cent of the total. There were 31 Assembly constituencies where ADS electors accounted for more than 10 per cent. The Choryasi constituency in Surat district topped the list with a whopping 25 per cent of the electors in the ADS list. In many other constituencies it certainly was in excess of the margins of victory in the 2002 election.

In order to get a better grip over this category, the ‘shifted’ and ‘absent’ electors were listed under two heads. The first comprised electors with family links, meaning that some members of the family were still available at the given address. The second comprised electors without family links: this meant that the entire family was absent. But unlike in U.P. where some District Electoral Officers deleted the names of electors belonging to the latter group, in Gujarat the EC instructed the DEOs not to delete suo motu the names of such electors — learning from the mistake in U.P. Though slightly anomalous, this position was accepted, as there was insufficient time to go through the full procedural drill of issuing notices and offering personal hearings before effecting deletions. But this put an additional burden on the system to ensure that this category was not exploited for bogus voting.

This apart, there was a problem of duplicate voters. When a name was duplicated within the same polling station area, it was easy to delete the duplicate entry. However, in Gujarat 2.82 lakh duplicate entries were thrown up by the computer, which was programmed to give out a list of electors with the same first name, father’s name, surname and age (plus or minus five years). Of these, 1.21 lakh entries were deleted. When this was attempted in respect of constituencies in Surat city on the one hand and in the districts of Amreli and Bhavnagar on the other hand (since it was known that people from those districts were largely to be found in Surat in the diamond cutting and polishing trade), 50,000 duplicate entries were thrown up. Owing to lack of time, checking these cases individually was impossible. So an advertisement was placed in local newspapers cautioning people against having their names in more than one place. This resulted in about 2,000 people voluntarily seeking the deletion of duplicate entries. They were allowed to choose one polling station where they desired to vote, with the entry in the other being deleted. The next logical step would have been to do photo matching using the appropriate software, but this could not be done because of time constraints. Physical verification had also to be stopped for the same reason. However, with the knowledge of duplication of entries between Bhavnagar and Amreli districts on the one hand and Surat on the other, a partial solution was found to the problem by slotting both places for the same phase of poll, even though the latter two districts in the Saurashtra area of Gujarat are not contiguous with Surat district.

There were also cases of long-time residents of Mumbai having registered themselves as voters in towns and villages in Gujarat, mainly in North Gujarat, from where they originally hailed. Some of them were expected to turn up on the date of polling. As dual or multiple registration is an offence under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, warnings were issued, through advertisements in newspapers in Mumbai, on their liability for prosecution. The railway authorities and Regional Transport Officers were alerted to report unusually large movements, booking of full bogies and bulk booking of tickets. Information did come from Western Railway and from check posts in South Gujarat about unusual movements. On a specific complaint which gave the names of voters registered at two places, in some villages in North Gujarat and in particular areas in Mumbai, DEOs were asked to file complaints under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act. These strong steps meant that only 12 out of the 191 voters with dual registration voted.

Since the ADS category of electors can be exploited for bogus voting, it was necessary to scrutinise closely the identity document presented by the ADS voters who turned up. If such a voter presented a passport or a driving licence, full details of the document were to be noted by the presiding officers, who were also expected to question the voter closely so that the correctness of his or her identity was established. These steps succeeded in almost totally eliminating bogus voting using the ADS voters list, though in some constituencies 10 per cent of voters from this list turned up to vote.

On the basis of the experience first in U.P. and now in Gujarat, it can be categorically said that ADS voters and duplicate voters will be present practically in every State. It is no wonder that in the whole of India there were 67.15 crore voters in 2004 during the parliamentary elections while based on the 2001 Census, in the projected population for 2004, citizens in the plus-18 age group (the number of electors) should have been 64.94 crore. Thus electors numbering 3.4 per cent of the total were extra on the rolls: the percentage will vary from State to State depending on the extent of inter-State and intra-State migration. Unless this problem is tackled effectively, the chances of bogus voting cannot be overcome without elaborate arrangements at the polling station level. All this extra checking puts additional pressure on the presiding officers and polling officers and results in the slowing down of voting.

It is necessary that all the stakeholders, namely the political parties, the candidates, the electors and the Election Commission, give some thought to tackling this problem if they are serious about eliminating bogus voting totally. Because of inter-State and intra-State migration, electoral rolls undergo change to the extent of 7 per cent to 8 per cent every year. Of this, 1 per cent is accounted for by deaths, and 2 per cent is accounted for by the addition of people who become eligible to vote on attaining 18 years of age. The remaining 5 per cent to 6 per cent is accounted for by inter-city and intra-city movement.

Since the Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission has relevance mostly to elections that happen once in five years, and since holding it is not a mandatory requirement and since alternative documents are prescribed from time to time to facilitate voting, many citizens do not take due care of them. Further, after migrating and while getting registered at new places they are not very concerned about getting their names deleted from their previous place of stay. Also, for various collateral reasons, people let their names remain in the electoral rolls in their home town or village — resulting in a large number of duplicate voters and absentee voters in many constituencies. This category at once lends itself to misuse by unscrupulous elements. Attempts can be made for bogus voting using information about voters whose names are on the rolls but who are not physically present. In many constituencies this number will be many multiples of the margin of victory. This fact leads to the temptation to convert a part of it to one’s advantage. If owing to ignorance or fear or collusion the polling agents do not object, it will not be possible for the presiding officers or the polling officers to prevent bogus voting. It puts enormous strain on the system in preparing the list of absentee voters. And on polling day it complicates the task of the presiding officers if they have to keep referring to too many lists before allowing a voter to vote. This also slows down voting.

A single unique identity card issued by the government which is mandatory for all citizens for all occasions, a multipurpose identity card, will help to a great extent in eliminating the problem of dual registrations and duplication of names. It will also help track ‘absentee’ and ‘shifted’ voters. Until such an identity card is mandated, the EPIC issued by the Election Commission should be made mandatory for every elector.

The Commission wants every elector to vote. It also has a responsibility to prevent bogus voting. It is possible to prevent bogus voting only if more and more electors exercise their franchise without fail. If you want a democratic government that you desire, there is no alternative to taking a little time off to go to the booth on the appointed day and press the little blue button.

(The author is the Chief Election Commissioner of India.)

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