#dnaEdit: Leave it to the voter

The Gujarat Governor’s assent to a bill which has a provision making voting compulsory in local body elections is fraught with uncomfortable implications. Rather than piloting the mandatory voting provision as a separate legislation, the Gujarat government, then under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has clubbed it with a salutary proposal for 50 per cent reservation for women in local bodies in the Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2009. Former Governor Kamla Beniwal returned the bill to the legislative assembly objecting to the mandatory voting clause and its clubbing with women’s reservation but when the Assembly refused to reconsider she exercised a pocket veto. Her replacement OP Kohli has had no such qualms in finally giving assent to the bill. However, it is counterproductive to view the governors’ actions from the prism of their political loyalties. The larger question is whether a citizen who does not want to vote, can be compelled to do so, or can be penalised for not voting. 

If the rationale behind the legislation is the low voter turnout in Gujarat municipal elections, which has ranged between 40 and 60 per cent, then the Gujarat government’s paternalistic desire to force voters to exercise their franchise is misguided. A more even-handed approach would be an awareness campaign highlighting the importance of the vote. Though the rules for the Act prescribing penalties are yet to be notified, a Gujarat official who helped draft the bill said they were “mulling punitive action like withdrawing BPL cards and discontinuing government subsidy on kerosene and cooking gas”. A demarcation is being made here between dependents and non-dependents on dole implying that an affluent citizen not voting is a lesser crime. Tying voting to accessing public services in this manner is both petty and discriminatory. Other countries with mandatory voting have penalties like a $20 fine (Australia), impact on salaries (Bolivia), and disenfranchisement (Singapore and Belgium). Unlike these countries, which have small populations, such a law is impracticable in India, besides being undesirable.

Voters do not exercise their franchise for many reasons other than indolence, which appears to be the target of this legislation. Those working as migrant labourers, those with illnesses, and those with political views or grievances have solid reasons not to exercise their franchise. In its decisions in the Kuldip Nayar, Association for Democratic Reforms, and the PUCL (NOTA) cases, the Supreme Court upheld the right to vote as merely a statutory and not a fundamental right, but the manner in which this right was exercised was a fundamental right of speech and expression. In the NOTA judgment directing the Election Commission to end the practice of manually collecting negative votes and instead make provisions in EVMs, the SC noted that the “protection of elector’s identity and affording secrecy is, therefore, integral to free and fair elections and an arbitrary distinction between the voter who casts his vote and the voter who does not cast his vote is violative of Article 14”. Admittedly, the “voter who does not cast his vote” could be interpreted as a NOTA voter in the context of this judgment. But even then, the secrecy allowed to NOTA voters should be extended to non-voters, to factor in their privacy and the possibility of harassment. Even the voting machines in Parliament allow for abstention; further many MPs and MLAs have poor attendance records during house sessions. The liberal principles legislators accord themselves should be extended to their voters and non-voters too.