The Government of India (GoI) is exploring the possibility of holding simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and all state assemblies. The proposal has been termed- ‘One Nation, One Election’ (ONOE). A high-level committee, comprising the Home Minister and other eminent persons, under the chairmanship of former president Sh Ram Nath Kovind, has been set up for the purpose.
As expected, there are dissenting views, as well as financial impact to consider. The Election Commission (EC) has informed the GoI that this exercise would cost about Rs 10,000 crore. There are pros and cons to the proposal and we assume that the final decision would be taken after considering all dimensions.
Elections in a vibrant democracy like ours present myriad challenges. Those among us who follow this ‘dance of democracy’ closely know that even elections at the village, and municipality levels are contested with full vigour and enthusiasm. One aspect that concerns all stakeholders alike, including voters, political parties, contestants and EC is the actual implementation of a universal adult franchise.
The Constitution gives us the Right; the EC prepares the voter lists; political agents and contestants scan the lists carefully for errors; voters go through the list expecting to find their names. Despite this, the final voting percentage seldom exceeds 65-70%. Besides a certain degree of voter apathy, which can never be eliminated completely. There are several other reasons; I have highlighted a few.
The day of the voting is usually a holiday, however, the wheels of the economy don’t stop churning. A large percentage of the population is away from the home constituency on the day of voting. To give an example; over 2 crore people travel in trains every day, including on election day. A large part of them cannot make it to the polling booth.
Similarly, people are compelled to move out of their constituencies during the voting period. The reasons could be professional, personal, social commitments, health and so on. This issue affects the rich and poor alike. A large percentage of our gig workers in urban centres come from rural hinterland. In most cases, they find it inconvenient to re-register as a voter in their temporary place of work. Travelling back home for elections is also not an option. One study conducted in 2019 indicated that as high as 91 % of urban migrants are not registered to vote. Similarly, people with higher income brackets like pilots, IT professionals, doctors, senior executives etc are usually not operating out of their home station.
Journalists and students in colleges are most likely not at the place where they are registered as voters. Before the 2019 General Elections, the Times of India group launched a campaign to find a method to include such voters, however, it did not gain much traction with the EC.
These votes can be termed as ‘lost votes’.
The problem will be exacerbated if we hold ONOE. This would disenfranchise a lot of citizens from voting their choice for both the state as well as Center. Elections on different dates would at least allow them partial participation.
There is a solution. At least in theory.
What if, we could cast our vote, irrespective of where we are?
The vote would still be against our voter ID, matched with the EC-approved voter list, for a candidate participating in our constituency. The voter need not be physically present at the assigned voting booth.
There are two ways to go about it. First, the voter could be allowed to visit the nearest polling booth (anywhere in India or Indian missions abroad) and cast their vote on a specially designed EVM that is connected to EC’s intranet/ database via a commercial internet connection. The second, much easier option would be to tokenize every vote in the form of an eVote. The voter should be able to cast their vote from any internet-enabled computer.
One key concern that would arise out of this suggestion would be how to ensure the integrity of the vote. EC would naturally be concerned about- dual voting, voting by proxy, stealing of the vote etc. All these concerns can be addressed by utilising a simple and emerging technology called: Blockchain.
In brief, blockchain is a large database that cannot be tampered with. It is a decentralised digital ledger that securely records transactions on numerous computers connected to the network. Blockchain ensures data integrity through its characteristics of decentralisation, immutability, and security through cryptography and consensus mechanisms.
In sum, information once recorded, cannot be altered retrospectively. EC is already seized of this idea and has been working with IIT Madras on a pilot project in this domain, since 2020. Supposedly, IIT Madras is working on the project with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC). Other democracies have also been toying with similar ideas and a lot of quality research and scholarly work is available on this subject, including a very finely researched paper by Anne-Marie Oostveen & Peter van den Besselaar. Unfortunately, nothing of significance has been seen on the ground.
Despite progress in the tech industry, the suggestion has not been widely accepted by major political parties on account of low awareness of technology, blind spots in existing laws and other political considerations. However, the time is now ripe to push forward and leverage technology for strengthening our democracy. As we explore means and ways to conduct ONOE, it would be a good time to deploy blockchain at booth levels to strengthen our universal adult franchise.
In an ideal scenario, a citizen should have the option to vote from anywhere on the election date utilising his/her tokenized vote. Alternative options for voting at the booth must continue to be available in parallel. This would ensure greater participation as, besides enabling (outstation) working professionals and migrant labour to vote, this would also incentivize the tech-savvy younger generation to participate in greater numbers, countering voter apathy to a certain extent.
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In terms of underlying tech; while the heavy lifting will be done by the blockchain developers, the user interface would be very simple and easy to execute. Each voter would get one e-vote (or token) per entitled vote. This token would be linked to voter ID and voter list. Accordingly, the voter could log in to his/her account on a web page maintained by EC (via a computer or smartphone) on the date of voting and cast their vote online. The voting options would be limited to candidates contesting in the voter’s entitled constituency. The token would be extinguished once the vote has been cast or the voting timeline has lapsed. All voting records would be available on the blockchain in an un-mutable format.
A truly representative government can only emerge from near-universal voting by the entitled population. The EC should leave no stone unturned to enhance voting percentages. It would be prudent to leverage emerging tech to make it easier for people to vote. While we explore the option of ONOE, it would be a good time to include eVoting via a blockchain to enable larger participation. The time is right for implementing this important reform in our voting process. In sum, blockchain at booth level can strengthen our democracy.
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