Voting Rights in India

By Naman Mahajan
Abstract:
This article is based on the Voting rights in India. Firstly, I introduced the topic of the
article which is ‘voting rights in India’, the right to vote is a basic human right. After
that, article is talks about the right to vote means who have the right to vote in India.
This is enshrined in the article 326 of the Indian Constitution. Thereafter, the article
contains the methods of voting mentioned in the constitution of India. There are two
methods of voting are by polling booth and postal ballot. In last, it contains the
various rights of voters in India

Introduction:

In simpler terms vote means a formal indication or choosing a candidate between two
or more candidates expressed by casting a ballot or raising your hand. A majority of
votes will decides the formal decisions or choices of the persons for the selections of
the candidates or party. It allows the voters or elected candidates to cast
representative.
The casting the representative on your own choice is the fundamental right in our
democratic country. It is the essential feature of the democratic society which allows
the citizens to say who governs them and how. The right to vote is not only the
fundamental right, it is also a responsibility of the citizens because it ensures the
voices of all the citizens and also their interest in the government. The right to vote is
a basic human right which is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and in other
countries right to vote is also protected by national constitution.

Right To Vote:

The right to vote is the fundamental right which is enshrined in article 326 of our
Indian Constitution. This article talks about the voting rights of the citizens in India.
Article 326 of the Indian Constitution states that “the elections to the House of the
People and to the Legislative Assembly of every State shall be on the basis of adult
suffrage; that is to say, every person who is a citizen of India and who is not less than
18 years of age on such date as may be fixed in that behalf by or under any law made
by the appropriate Legislature and is not otherwise disqualified under this
Constitution or any law made by the appropriate Legislature on the ground of non-
residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt or illegal practices, shall be entitled
to be registered as a voter at any such election". Initially, an Indian citizen above the
age of 35 years was able to give a vote which was later changed and decreased the
limit of age with 21 years. However, the Constitution 66th amendment Act,1989 has
reduced the age of voting for state and Lok Sabha assemblies to 18 years. This
Article protects the equality among the voters and abolished the discrimination on the
bases of caste, race, sex and gender.

There are various ways to ensures the voting rights of the citizens of the democratic
Country which includes:
1. It includes measures such as automatic voters registration, early voting.
2. Measures such as accessibility, polling places and voting equipment to make
voting accessible to people with disabilities.
3. Measures to aware about the right to vote to the voters to the citizens through
education.

Earlier, the Indian citizen who are lived outside the territory of India are able to give
or choose the representative of your own choice through the amendment of the
Representative of the People Act,1950. he/she can only vote in person and will have
to produce her passport in original at the polling station to establish identity. Later, in
Parliament session 2017, government removed the restriction imposed by section 20A
of the Representation of the People Act. The bill provides that the non-Indian voters
are also able to appoint a proxy to cast their votes on their behalf. On which some
conditions are laid down in the Conduct of election Rules,1961.

Persons who have right to vote:

As mentioned above, according to the article 326 of the Indian constitution, all Indian
citizen who are above the age of 18 years, must be of sound mind and also who have
registered them as a voters can give vote. If the citizen become qualifies for voting in
India, then the person can vote in the national, state, district as well as local
government body elections and no one can prevent or detained from voting. As per
the voting rules, an Indian can cast only one vote, must have voter ID or election card
and only cast vote at the registered constituency. An individual are not permitted to
participate in the electoral process if they have not registered or do not possess the
voter ID.

The rules related to disqualification of voters from the electoral process are also
enshrined in the Indian Constitution. The rules are mentioned below:
 An individual who convicted under the offences committed under section 171E
and 171F of the Indian Penal Code are disqualified from the election process.
 If the individual votes in m ore than one constituency, as a result, his vote is
disqualified.
 An individual who convicted under section 125, section 135 and section 136 of
the Representation of People’s act are disqualified from casting the vote.

How can give vote:

A citizen can cast their vote by two methods which are mentioned in the Indian
Constitution are:

1. Visiting by Booth:
In India, a person can cast cast their vote at the polling booth but the person is
required to qualifies the eligibility criteria of the electoral process.this prevent from
fake voting on the person’s behalf.

2 .Postal ballot:
In this method, vote is cast via post. In special cases voting is dome by post which is
known as postal ballot. An individual who are not able to visiting the poling booth
due to certain reasons or difficulties are used the postal ballot method. For ex the
soldier, policemen who are on duty and people on preventive detention.

Rights of voters in India:

There are certain rights which are given to the voters of India by the election
commission of India.these rights of the voters are safeguard by the constitution of
India. Some rights of the voters are mentioned below:

1. Right to Know:
The right to know is enshrined in our constitution under article 19, which says that all
voters have right to know about the candidate who are contesting for the election.
This article also give power to the voter to know about the details and past records of
the candidate.

2. Voting rights of NRIs:

The NRI are those persons of the country who are living at the place of residence for
the reason of employment or any other reason but they still have the right to vote. As
we discussed above also, earlier NRI do not have the right to vote, later on, an
amendment was passed in 2010 which allows the NRIs to vote.

3. Right not to vote (NOTA):

NOTA stands for none of the above. This right granted to the voters to not to vote. In
this, a voter participate in the election but not chooses any contesting candidate in the
election. The voter excersized this right when he/she feels that non of the candidate is
not worthy for the selection and in this case voters choose NOTA.