Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

1 of 6

http://www.vifindia.org/print/321

Published on Vivekananda International Foundation (http://www.vifindia.org)

Home > Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time

Has Come
Dr A Surya Prakash, Distinguished Fellow, VIF

[1]

Mr.Deenanath Kushwaha of the Samajwadi Party won the Deoria seat in the election held in
May, 2007 to elect a new state assembly in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh. So, what?,
you would think. Mr.Kushwahas success would certainly be a worthless addition to the clutter
of information that bombards you every minute in the internet age, until you see the fine print
and realize the implications of this candidates victory to our democracy and the system of
representation in our legislatures. Deoria Assembly Constituency in Uttar Pradesh has 3.49
lakh voters. In the last assembly election just 1.41 lakh of these voters (40.41 per cent of the
total electorate) cast their votes. Mr.Kushwaha secured 25568 of these votes, which
amounted to 18.12 per cent of the votes polled. In other words, he was the choice of less than
one-fifth of the voters of Deoria who cared to trudge up to the polling stations. But what is truly
remarkable is the fact that he went on to represent Deoria in the State Assembly even though
the votes he secured amounted to just 7.30 per cent of the total electorate in the constituency
(1)
Deoria 2007 is a classic example of a system of representation that has gone horribly wrong.
This piece of electoral statistic is certain to shake our faith in the First-Past-The-Post ( FTTP)
System that we have adopted since the first general election held in 1952. But Deoria is not
the only example. Here are a few more from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election of 2007
and the Karnataka Assembly Election held in May, 2008, which should make us sit up and
re-evaluate the efficacy of the present electoral system:
Mr.Ajay Kapoor of the Indian National Congress (INC) was declared elected from
Govindnagar in Uttar Pradesh. The total electorate in this constituency is 2,42,228 of which
1,10,475 (45.61 per cent ) cast their votes. Mr.Kapoor secured 29,993 votes (38.45 per cent
of the votes polled) which amounted to just 7.5 per cent of the total electorate. Dr.Jyotsna
Shrivastav of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was elected to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly
from Varanasi Cantonment. This constituency has 384757 votes of which only 121520 (31.58
per cent) cast their votes. Dr.Shrivastav secured 31642 votes (26.04 per cent of the votes
polled) constituting 8.20 per cent of the total votes in this Constituency. (2)
Election data from other states in other regions throw up similar incongruities, as in the
election to the Karnataka assembly in May, 2008. In this election, Mr.Appaji Channabasavaraj
Shankarrao Nadagouda of INC won the Muddebihal seat. This constituency has 1,57,647
voters of which 96,367 ( 61.13 per cent) cast their votes. Mr.Nadagouda secured 24065 votes
( 24.97 per cent of the votes polled) which translates to support of 8 per cent of the voters in
this constituency. In Indi assembly constituency, the winner, Dr.Bagali Sarvabhoum
Satagouda of the BJP bagged 29456 votes - which is just 8.5 per cent of the total electorate
of 1,73,844. (3)
The failure of FTTP has been brought about by a variety of factors. These include voter
fatigue, growing cynicism about democracy and politics, atomization of the polity consequent

04-08-2016 14:54

Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

2 of 6

http://www.vifindia.org/print/321

to the emergence of regional and caste-based political parties over the last 25 years and the
consequential fragmentation of votes and lowering of the threshold for victory in elections.
With almost every state witnessing a triangular or quadrangular contest among political
parties, every election to the state assembly or parliament is now resulting in a fractured
mandate that virtually knocks the bottom out of the logic of representative democracy.
Election data from across the country since 1996 abound in such examples of the disjunction
between peoples will and electoral victories. Since only 40 50 per cent of the electors cast
their votes and the loyalties of even this minority is torn between four or five political parties,
the winner of an election to a state assembly or the lower House of Parliament usually ends
up with the support of just 10 20 per cent of the total electors in the constituency. As a result
we do not have the foggiest idea of what actually is the mandate of the majority of the electors
in a given constituency. This remains a mystery for ever. What we have before us is actually
the preference of a minority. However, despite mounting evidence that most legislators in
India today enter democratic bodies riding on a minority vote, politicians, who are the major
beneficiaries of this systemic defect, are unwilling to address the issue and search for
remedies. There could be a variety of reasons for the paralysis within the political class. It
could be ennui, fear of change or just plain self-interest that has prevented the political class
from acknowledging this issue and undertaking an honest audit of the electoral system. To an
extent, the inaction of politicians is understandable but what is truly deafening is the silence of
the Election Commission of India and civil society despite the obvious collapse of the system
of democratic representation.
Apart from weariness, politicians in general are gripped by the fear of the unknown and would
therefore prefer to carry on with a hackneyed system, which is well past its utility rather than
experiment with change. This attitude in turns spawns myths about the existing electoral and
parliamentary systems and prevents a rational and scientific assessment of the efficacy of
these systems for good governance and the furtherance of democracy. However, despite this
wall of disinterest, some political scientists and scholars have begun to challenge these myths
and to raise some relevant questions.
Mr.Arun Shourie, a prolific writer on politics and governance in India discusses the defects in
the FPTP system in his book `The Parliamentary System, which was published last year and
raises questions about the representativeness of legislatures. Political scientists have for
long believed that FTTP ensures majorities in democratic bodies whereas proportional
representation promotes divisiveness. There is also the myth that FTTP promotes a two-party
system. Mr.Shouries research challenges this assumption.
Here are some of Mr.Shouries conclusions in regard to the Lok Sabha election held in 2004.
He found that 60 per cent of the MPs got into parliament on the basis of a minority vote.
Further, if one were to examine the winners vote share as a percentage of the total electorate
in the constituency, the conclusion would be even more disappointing. In a word, 99 per cent
of the members got into the Lok Sabha by getting less than half the electors to vote for them.
Almost 60 per cent got in with the endorsement of less than 30 per cent of the electors in their
constituencies. One table in this book which examines 59 Lok Sabha constituencies in which
the winners in 2004 had the support of less than 20 per cent of the total electorate is sufficient
to challenge the efficacy of the present electoral system. Here are a few examples discussed
by Mr.Shourie in his book:
In Basti, the winning candidate had the support of just 11 per cent of the electoral college. It
was equally pathetic in many other constituencies including Robertsganj (11.4), Mohanlal
Ganj (11.6), Mirzapur(12.4), Aligarh ( 12.5) and Fatehpur (12.8). (4)
The unrepresentativeness of governments and legislators in the states is even greater. On
analysing elections to 20 state assemblies between 2001 and 2005, Mr.Shourie found that in
Bihar all those who entered the assembly did so even though 70 per cent of the electors in

04-08-2016 14:54

Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

3 of 6

http://www.vifindia.org/print/321

the constituency had not endorsed them. In Jharkhand, the figure was 95 per cent; in U.P, 96
per cent, in Uttarakhand, 97 per cent. According to the author, even if we consider only the
electors who actually voted in these elections, the percentage of candidates who succeeded
on the basis of a minority of votes cast was 89 in Bihar, 80 in Chhatisgarh, 94 in Jharkhand
and 96 in U.P and Uttarakhand. In several other states like Assam, Haryana, Karnataka,
Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan, those who succeeded on the basis of a minority
vote was between 65 and 75 per cent. (5)
My own analysis of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election held in 2007 only reinforces the
argument that the electoral system has gone completely awry. Of the 403 constituencies in
the state, winning candidates in just 14 constituencies secured more than 50 per cent of the
votes polled, which means that 389 candidates made it to the state assembly on the support
of a minority of the voters in their constituencies. In Karnataka, winning candidates in 175 of
the 224 constituencies secured less than 50 per cent of the votes polled.
In the First-Past-The-Post System, whenever there are two major political parties or coalitions
battling it out for a majority, a party or coalition will need around 42 - 45 per cent of the
popular vote to secure a clear majority in the legislature. The point to note is that even when
there were direct contests in most parts of the country between two parties or alliances, the
winning party or alliance never managed to secure the mandate of more than 50 per cent of
the voters who exercised their franchise in a parliamentary election. The best performance
thus far has been that of the Congress Party headed by Rajiv Gandhi in the Lok Sabha
election held at the end of 1984, within months of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi. Riding on a massive sympathy wave, the Congress Party secured just over 49 per
cent of the votes polled in that election and bagged over 400 seats in the Lok Sabha.
However spectacular this may seem a three-fourths majority in the Lower House of
Parliament the fact remains that a majority of voters had voted against the Congress Party.
The Congress Party routinely managed a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha and in most of
the state assemblies for long years after independence with 44-47 per cent of the vote. This
disjunction between vote share and seat share has indeed been the bane of the FTTP
system. It has always resulted in exaggerated support with a legislative chamber for the
winning party even though the support for it outside the chamber remains indifferent. Over the
last two decades, the political scene has got crowded and triangular and quadrangular
contests have become the order of the day. This has brought down the percentage of votes
needed by a party or coalition to secure a clear majority. For example in Uttar Pradesh where
you have four prominent parties in the contest, the threshold is now as low as 30 per cent.
Aware of this relationship between votes and seats, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) decided
over a year ago to enlarge its social base just enough to cross this threshold. Though the
party was built 25-years ago on a hate-upper castes slogan, Ms.Mayawati, its leader, offered
the olive branch to the Brahmins because she perceived the newly-empowered Other
Backward Castes (OBC) which support the Samajwadi Party, as the bigger evil. The party
held several Brahmin Sammelans in the state and laid the ground for the Dalit-MuslimBrahmin vote base that eventually helped the party in the recent election. It also took BSPs
vote share from the 22-24 per cent band to just over 30 per cent enough in a quadrangular
electoral battle to obtain a clear majority.
The Uttar Pradesh results have grave implications for the two main national parties the
Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Since this state, which is located in the
Hindi heartland, is the largest state in the country and has a demographic profile that is
balanced and representative, the fortunes of the national parties here will largely determine
electoral outcomes in national elections. The Congress Party stitched together a social
coalition of Brahmins, Dalits and Muslims that ensured a rich harvest of votes and seats in
Uttar Pradesh since the first general elections in 1952. This social platform began to fall apart

04-08-2016 14:54

Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

4 of 6

http://www.vifindia.org/print/321

in the late 1980s resulting in a dramatic decline in this partys electoral fortunes. For example,
the party, which had secured a record 51 per cent of the vote in the state in 1984, won just 46
seats in the 425-member state assembly in 1991. By 1993, it was reduced to 28 seats. In the
Lok Sabha election held in 1996, the Congress Party bagged just 5 seats and established
leads in only 22 assembly segments and its vote share dropped to an abysmal 8.14 per cent.
But worse was in store for the party in the Lok Sabha election held in 1998. Its share of the
national vote crashed to 25.82 per cent ( the lowest since the first general election in 1952)
and its vote share in Uttar Pradesh touched the nadir it got just 6.02 per cent of the vote in
this state and did not win a single seat. In 2007, the partys vote share in Uttar Pradesh is just
8 per cent.
The other national party the BJP - too is in a state of internal crisis and is unable to cash in
on the declining fortunes of the Congress .Both the parties will have to think afresh in order to
retain their hold at the federal level. The experience of these parties in the Uttar Pradesh
Assembly poll held in 2007 should be an eye opener for both of them. The Congress secured
just 8.50 per cent of the vote and polled less than 5 per cent of the votes in 202 of the 403
constituencies. Worse, the partys vote share was less than 2 per cent in 63 of these
constituencies. In Muzaffarabad the party secured an embarrassing 765 votes (0.49 per cent )
of the 1.55 lakh votes polled. The partys tally was 768 (0.62 per cent) in Kandhla and 777 (
0.58 per cent ) in Fatehabad. (6)
There are dozens of such examples across the state. Is this the party of Motilal Nehru,
Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi? As regards the BJP, it saw a spectacular rise in its
fortunes in U.P after the Ayodhya movement. It secured 52 seats and 33.44 per cent of the
vote in the 1996 Lok Sabha election and improved this further to 57 seats and 36.49 per cent
of the vote in 1998. Thereafter, its decline began. By 2004, its vote share was down to 22.17
per cent translating to just 10 Lok Sabha seats. The BJPs plight in Uttar Pradesh was not as
bad as that of the Congress in 2007 but there is no doubt that its vote share graph is south
bound. This party secured 36.50 per cent in the 1998 Lok Sabha election. In the state
assembly election it notched up just 17 per cent of the vote. In some constituencies its allies
like the Apna Dal bagged less than one per cent of the votes polled.
One thing that emerges from all this data is that FPTP has robbed democratic bodies of their
representative character. It only promotes divisiveness and makes a mockery of
accountability. It has also brought about the decline of national parties like the Congress Party
and the BJP and encouraged fragmentation of the vote both at the state and national level.
When this splintering of the vote is coupled with low voter turn-out, we have a situation that
actually mocks at the democratic process. India being one of the most socially and culturally
diverse societies in the world, it is obviously not possible for anyone to reverse the process of
social and political fragmentation. However, it is legally possible to deal with the problem of
low voter turn-out which is resulting in the election of MPs and MLAs who have the support of
less than ten per cent of the electorate in a given constituency.
While it is true that multiplicity of parties makes government formation difficult, it is also true
that low voter turn-out coupled with the FPTP system has reduced the democratic process to
a complete farce. The latter problem can be effectively addressed by making voting
compulsory. A law that enforces compulsory voting will at least ensure that most of the
electors in a constituency do their duty of casting their ballots in an election. This, in turn will
ensure that the person elected truly commands the support of the largest number of voters in
the constituency. Even if the vote is splintered, compulsory voting will ensure that the
candidate who commands the maximum support among the electors gets through, even if it is
not the support of the majority of the voters. In any case, we will never again see a situation
wherein a person enters a legislative chamber with the support of just 7 or 8 per cent of the

04-08-2016 14:54

Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

5 of 6

http://www.vifindia.org/print/321

total electorate.
Mr.Shourie has suggestions if one is willing to face the truth about the existing electoral
system and its implications for governance. He offers many options to those who are ready to
listen. Among them are adoption of a partial list system as in Germany and some other
countries; a new electoral system in which the link between a candidate and a constituency is
weakened. This can happen if the candidate is randomly selected through a lottery;
compulsory voting in order to force candidates to appeal to a wider audience and to
discourage sectional or chauvinistic approach to vote-gathering; and a possible switch to a
presidential form of government with the President to be elected directly. In order to prevent
persons from getting elected as President with a minority vote, there can be a run-off election
between the two main contenders as in France so that the winner commands the support of a
majority of the voters. (7)
Several others have come up with suggestions to rid the electoral system of its ills.
The Election Commission of India has suggested that the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 be
amended to provide for negative/neutral voting. What this means is that every ballot paper
should have a column which says none of the above after the list of candidates, so that a
voter who is dissatisfied with those in the fray can reject all of them. The commission first
made this proposal in 2001 and renewed it when it made a fresh package of proposals for
electoral reform in 2004. The commission however has not come out in favour of compulsory
voting. (8)
The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) has
recommended that the government and the Election Commission consider the idea of having
a run off election between the first two candidates in an election in order to ensure that the
winner in an electoral contest has the support of 50 percent plus one of the voters. It has said
the government and the Election Commission should consult political parties and other
interests that might consider themselves affected by this change and evaluate the
acceptability and benefits of this system. As against the first-past-the-post system, a run-off
contest could mean a more representative democracy, it said. (9)
Among all these proposals, I would like to opt for compulsory voting because I feel that this is
the first step we need to take in order to lend depth and meaning to the democratic process in
the country. There is nothing original or revolutionary in the idea of compulsory voting
because this is already being implemented in one form or the other in 33 countries in the
world and there are countries which enforced this over a century ago. According to the
Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), a number of countries across the
world have made voting compulsory. Prominent among them are Belgium, Switzerland,
Australia, Singapore, Argentina, Austria, Cyprus, Peru, Greece and Bolivia. Belgium set the
ball rolling with the introduction of compulsory voting in 1892. Australia introduced it in 1924.
We need to look at the laws pertaining to compulsory voting in all these countries and draft a
law that suits our genius. The penalty that is imposed on violators of this law varies from
nation to nation. For example, in Australia, those who fail to turn up for voting are fined Aus $
20 -50. Citizens who do not pay the fine could face a prison sentence. Switzerland, Austria,
Cyprus and Peru also impose fines on absentee voters. In Belgium, repeated abstention by a
voter can lead to disenfranchisement. In Singapore a citizen who does not vote is removed
from the list of electors. Getting back on the voters list can be cumbersome. In Bolivia, the
penalty for not voting in an election is a salary cut whereas in Greece, the penalty could be
harsher conditions for securing a passport or a driving licence. (10)
We also need to incorporate this in Article 51 A of the Constitution which deals with
Fundamental Duties. Voting in elections must be made a fundamental duty. The right to vote
04-08-2016 14:54

Compulsory Voting - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

6 of 6

http://www.vifindia.org/print/321

must also become a duty to vote. The NCRWC has recommended something on these lines.
It has said in its report that duty to vote at elections and active participation
in the democratic process of governance should be included in Article 51 A. (10)
The atomization of the polity and the low voter turn-out in elections (40 45 per cent) has
reduced the democratic process to a complete sham. We can lend some authenticity to
Indias democratic march by taking the difficult but inevitable decision to make voting
compulsory. If we fail to do so and allow the citizens the luxury of treating elections with
contempt, the day may not be far off when forces inimical to democracy will use these very
arguments to put an end to the charade that is currently on and snuff out what little is left of
representative democracy in India.
REFERENCES :
1.Detailed Results, Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election, 2007: http://www.eci.gov.in
/StatisticalReports/SE_2007/StatReport_AS_2007_UTTA... [2]
2. ibid
3. Detailed Results, Karnataka Assembly Election, 2008 :
http://www.Search.eci.gov.in/ae%5f2008e/ [3]
4.Arun Shourie, The Parliamentary System, ASA Publications, New Delhi, 2007, p.34
5. Arun Shourie, The Parliamentary System, ASA Publications, New Delhi, 2007, p.32
6.http://www.eci.gov.in/StatisticalReports/SE_2007
/StatReport_AS_2007_UTTAR_PRADESH.pdf
7.Arun Shourie, The Parliamentary System, ASA Publications, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 87-93
and pp 97-99.
8. Electoral Reforms Proposals, Election Commission of India: http://www.eci.gov.in
/PROPOSED_ELECTORAL_REFORMS.pdf [4]
9. Report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution,
Recommendation 51: http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport.htm [5]
10. Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance:
http://www.idea.int/vt/compulory_voting.cfm [6].
11.: Report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution,
Recommendation 28: http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport.htm [5]
Governance and Political Studies [7]
Home

About Us

Events

Publications

Team

Media

Contact Us

Samvad - Global Hindu Buddhist Initiative on Conflict Avoidance and Environment

Consciousness
Source URL (retrieved on Aug 4 2016 - 14:53): http://www.vifindia.org/node/321
Links:
[1] http://www.vifindia.org/author/shri-a-surya-prakash
[2] http://www.eci.gov.in/StatisticalReports/SE_2007/StatReport_AS_2007_UTTAR_PRADESH.pdf
[3] http://www.Search.eci.gov.in/ae%5f2008e/
[4] http://www.eci.gov.in/PROPOSED_ELECTORAL_REFORMS.pdf
[5] http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport.htm
[6] http://www.idea.int/vt/compulory_voting.cfm
[7] http://www.vifindia.org/article/82

04-08-2016 14:54