Supreme court in the ruling on 27th of September has asked Election commission to introduce a button in the EVM for None of the Above option. Earlier the voters have to chose to use 49-O and they have fill in a paper form and express their view that they don't want to vote for any of the candidates.
This is a good move by the Supreme court for the following reasons
1) The Booth officers are known to discourage people from exercising the option of 49-O, that will no longer happen
2) The voters can exercise their preference in complete confidentiality and they don't have to answer unnecessary questions
Points to ponder
1) There will be a question on legitimacy of the election process if there are considerable number of NOTA votes.
2) The number of votes that the independents will receive will go down. Many votes that the independents receive is because the voters don't like the party candidates and they just vote for someone. In the long term, this will be a positive as only serious candidates will contest elections.
3) Many people feel that this might increase the voting percentage, but I personally don't agree to this. Voters don't vote because they don't want to go and stand line and exercise their franchise. NOTA button is not going to change that
Likewise, when a voter goes to the polling booth to exercise his/her franchise if they find that their vote has already been exercised by someone else they have to use a paper ballot to vote. This paper ballot is just folded and kept in a cover. Where is the confidentiality of such votes?
What is surprising is that some of the changes in the election process are coming from the Supreme court and not the parliament.
This is a good move by the Supreme court for the following reasons
1) The Booth officers are known to discourage people from exercising the option of 49-O, that will no longer happen
2) The voters can exercise their preference in complete confidentiality and they don't have to answer unnecessary questions
Points to ponder
1) There will be a question on legitimacy of the election process if there are considerable number of NOTA votes.
2) The number of votes that the independents will receive will go down. Many votes that the independents receive is because the voters don't like the party candidates and they just vote for someone. In the long term, this will be a positive as only serious candidates will contest elections.
3) Many people feel that this might increase the voting percentage, but I personally don't agree to this. Voters don't vote because they don't want to go and stand line and exercise their franchise. NOTA button is not going to change that
Likewise, when a voter goes to the polling booth to exercise his/her franchise if they find that their vote has already been exercised by someone else they have to use a paper ballot to vote. This paper ballot is just folded and kept in a cover. Where is the confidentiality of such votes?
What is surprising is that some of the changes in the election process are coming from the Supreme court and not the parliament.
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