Date: 21/10/2022

Relevance: GS- 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Key Phrases: Election Commission, Electoral participation, Chief Electoral Officer, Compulsory voting, Privacy, Representation of People Act, 1951, PUCL vs Union of India, 2013, Fundamental right, Article 14, Voter education, SVEEP programme.

Why in News?

• The Election Commission’s strategy to name and shame voters who do not vote.

Context:

• Recently, the Election Commission has signed MoUs with over 1,000 corporate houses undertaking to monitor “electoral participation of their workforce” and publish on their websites and notice boards those who do not vote.
• To make matters worse, the Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat has said that the employees of state public sector units and government departments who don’t vote will also be tracked.
• A report also mentioned that on a recent visit to Gujarat, the CEC himself had said that though the commission cannot enforce compulsory voting, it “wanted to identify workers in big industries who don’t vote despite availing the holiday”.

Issues in this scenario:

• These shocking developments raise once again serious issues surrounding voters’ rights, compulsory voting, secrecy of voting and debates around privacy and coercion.
• Any coercion - particularly coercion of the kind being proposed by the EC in this case — betrays an authoritarian approach that is not only antithetical to democracy, but is directly violative of the Constitution and the laws of the land.
• It is important to have a look at all the legal and constitutional provisions that this action would be violative of.
  • Section 79 D of the Representation of People Act, 1951 which defines “electoral right” to mean the right of a person to… vote or refrain from voting at an election”.
  • The same provision exists in the Indian Penal Code, vide Section 171A (b). The law completely enables, but does not force, citizens to vote.
  • Section135B of the Representation of People Act, 1951, grants a paid holiday to every person employed in any business, trade, industrial undertaking or any other establishment.

Apex court on the compulsory voting:

• The Supreme Court, in PUCL vs Union of India, 2013, (popularly known as the NOTA judgment), the Court said: “… free and fair election is a basic structure of the Constitution and necessarily includes within its ambit the right of an elector to cast his vote without fear of reprisal, duress or coercion.
• The court also held that abstention from voting and negative voting are protected as freedom of expression - a fundamental right (Article 19).
• Earlier, in April 2009, the Court had taken the same view while dismissing a plea that sought to make voting mandatory on grounds of governments not representing the majority because of low turnouts.
• Protection of elector’s identity and affording secrecy is therefore integral to free and fair elections and an arbitrary distinction between a voter who casts and a voter who does not cast his vote is violative of Article 14.

Measure to enhance voter participation:

• The noble objective of enhanced voter participation can be best achieved through systematic voter education, amply demonstrated by the ECI in elections in all the states and Union territories since 2010 when a voter education division was set up. This soon evolved into its SVEEP programme.
  • SVEEP programme:
    • Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation program, better known as SVEEP, is the flagship program of the Election Commission of India for voter education, spreading voter awareness and promoting voter literacy in India.
    • Since 2009, Election Commission of India has been working towards preparing India’s electors and equipping them with basic knowledge related to the electoral process.
    • SVEEP’s primary goal is to build a truly participative democracy in India by encouraging all eligible citizens to vote and make an informed decision during the elections.
    • The programme is based on multiple general as well as targeted interventions which are designed according to the socio-economic, cultural and demographic profile of the state as well as the history of electoral participation in previous rounds of elections and learning thereof.
• This has led to all elections ever since seeing the highest-ever turnouts. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the 67.3 per cent turnout beat all previous records. Many states have reached close to 90 per cent turnout and above. The EC’s consistent assertion that motivation and facilitation, rather than compulsion, are the best ways to address the issue, has been clearly vindicated.
• The voter education programme has sought to motivate the youth to participate in democracy by registering as voters, voting in every election and voting ethically —that is, without inducement. It has involved schools and colleges to take the registration facility to the doorstep by introducing voter clubs, campus ambassadors and youth icons and placing drop boxes in colleges for new applications.
• Employers have been encouraged to create similar facilities in their offices. They are legally obliged to close their establishments on poll day, but this is seldom enforced. Instead, employers are asked to allow the employees a couple of hours off to enable them to go and vote. “Naming and shaming” of non-voters is not an option available, even to the Election Commission.

Source: Indian Express

Mains Question:

Q. “Free and fair election is a basic structure of the Constitution and necessarily includes within its ambit the right of an elector to cast his vote without fear of reprisal, duress or coercion”. Discuss this in light of the Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat’s statement that the employees of state public sector units and government departments who don’t vote will also be tracked.