Remote Voting
Introduction:
- There were around 45.36 crore migrants in India as per the 2011 census. This demonstrates that a sizable portion of the population is excluded from franchise opportunities because of the obligations of their professions or a lack of funds for travel. It makes up about 37% of the nation’s population. This directly contradicts the EC’s mission statement, “No voter left behind.”
Definition of Remote Voting:
- Any procedure that enables voters to cast their ballots from locations other than the polling place designated to their registration address is referred to as remote voting. The remote voting location may be local or international. Both manual and automatic voting processes are used in it.
- To address this issue, the Election Commission (EC) established a “Committee of Officers on Domestic Migrants”. The Committee recommended “remote voting” as a solution in its 2016 report.
Migration and absentee voting:
Migrant workers in India frequently express reluctance to register as voters in states other than their home state. This is due to a number of reasons, including:
- The place of residence frequently changes.
- Fear of losing possessions in their home state.
- They either couldn’t or didn’t want to invite their relatives.
- Women were not safe in the area, as the travellers repeatedly mentioned.
Electronic remote for voting (RVM):
- The Election Commission of India (ECI) has suggested the deployment of remote voting machines (RVMs) in order to provide voting facilities to migratory workers who find it difficult to travel back to their hometown to cast their ballots. By doing this, votes would be saved.
- Special remote voting locations are set up in other states when elections are held in the home states of migratory workers.
- The remote voter must pre-register for the service by delivering an application to the returning officer of their home constituency either in person or online.
- The current homes of the remote voters would then become the special polling places.
- The RVM is a standalone, disconnected system.
- Instead of a paper ballot sheet that may change based on which constituencies were chosen, the RVM would have a dynamic ballot display.
- An apparatus resembling the VVPAT was part of a system that allowed voters to verify their ballots.
Suggestions:
- The fundamental objective of the ECI must be to ensure that every Indian who is eligible to vote is able to do so.
- Voting must be regarded as both a civic obligation and a civic privilege.
- The ECI might launch major outreach initiatives to urge migrant workers to vote using the network of District Collectorates.
- Immigrants should be allowed to vote in person in the city where they work based on the address on their existing voter IDs and the period of their temporary stay.
- The same way the “One Nation One Ration Card” gave more power to the underrepresented migrant voters, a “One Nation One Voter ID” would guarantee the portability of native ballots.
- The right of every Indian voter to vote in elections is a requirement for a democratically inclusive India.
Conclusion:
- Along with leaving their home countries, many migrants have forfeited crucial rights. People have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote during elections, however migrant voters’ votes have historically been absent. Millions of migrant workers now have some hope thanks to the ECI’s intervention, but there are still two critical tasks that need to be accomplished: increasing knowledge of the initiative and guaranteeing transparency.
