49-O

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rule 49-O was a rule in The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961
[1]
of
India, which governs elections in the country. It described the procedure
to be followed when a valid voter decides not to cast his vote, and
decides to record this fact. The rule was declared by the Supreme Court
in September 2013 to be incompatible with the constitution and the
Election Commission of India announced that the option under this rule
would not be available any more.
[2]
The apparent purpose of this
section was to maintain a proper record in order to prevent the election
fraud or the misuse of votes.
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Contents
1 Text of Rule 49-O
2 Implications of Rule 49-O
3 Proposals by the Election Commission of India
4 Disqualification hoax
5 Invalidation of rule 49-O
6 Criticism of proposals regarding negative voting and
annulment of polling due to neutral votes
7 See also
8 References
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Text of Rule 49-O
49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.If an elector, after his electoral roll
number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form 17A and
has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under
sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this
effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding
officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be
obtained against such remark.
[1]
Implications of Rule 49-O
Since the ballot paper or electronic voting machine (EVM) showed only
the list of candidates, a voter could not record his vote under Section
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49-O directly, but had to inform the presiding officer at the election
booth. This violated the secrecy of the ballot. However, with paper
ballot one could "waste" one's vote by stamping on multiple candidates;
this was the standard method of giving null votes without violating
secrecy before the advent of the EVM.
Proposals by the Election Commission of
India
In 2004 the then Chief Election Commissioner of India, T.S.
Krishnamurthy, submitted a number of proposed electoral reforms
[3]
to
the then Prime Minister, including the following:
NEGATIVE / NEUTRAL VOTING
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The Commission has received proposals from a very large
number of individuals and organizations that there should
be a provision enabling a voter to reject all the candidates
in the constituency if he does not find them suitable. In the
voting using the conventional ballot paper and ballot boxes,
an elector can drop the ballot paper without marking his
vote against any of the candidates, if he chooses so.
However, in the voting using the Electronic Voting
Machines, such a facility is not available to the voter.
Although, Rule 49 O of the Conduct of Election Rules,
1961 provides that an elector may refuse to vote after he
has been identified and necessary entries made in the
Register of Electors and the marked copy of the electoral
roll, the secrecy of voting is not protected here in as much
as the polling officials and the polling agents in the polling
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station get to know about the decision of such a voter.
The Commission recommends that the law should be
amended to specifically provide for negative / neutral
voting. For this purpose, Rules 22 and 49B of the Conduct
of Election Rules, 1961 may be suitably amended adding a
provision that in the ballot paper and the particulars on the
ballot unit, in the column relating to names of candidates,
after the entry relating to the last candidate, there shall be a
column None of the above, to enable a voter to reject all the
candidates, if he chooses so. Such a proposal was earlier
made by the Commission in 2001 (vide letter dated
10.12.2001).
Disqualification hoax
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A hoax has been circulating which claims that if the '49-O' votes more
than those of the winning candidate, then that poll will be canceled and
will have to be re-polled. Furthermore, it claims that the contestants will
be banned and they cannot contest the re-polling for their lifetime. This
is an incorrect interpretation and was clarified by the Election
Commission.
[4]
Invalidation of rule 49-O
In its judgement of 27 September, 2013, The Supreme Court directed
that the Election Commission should make necessary provision in the
ballot papers/EVMs for None of the Above (NOTA) option so that
the electors who do not wish to vote for any of the candidates can
exercise their right not to vote for any candidate without violation of the
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secrecy of their decision. Rules 41 (2), 41(3) and 49-O of the Conduct
of Elections Rules, 1961, were held to be ultra vires Section 128 of the
Representation of the People Act, 1951 and Article 19(1)(a) of the
Constitution. On 11 October 2013, the Election Commission released a
notification declaring that the None of the above option would be
provided on voting machines and the option under rule 49-O would not
be available any longer.
[2]
Criticism of proposals regarding negative
voting and annulment of polling due to
neutral votes
An argument in favour of provision of neutral voting is that it ensures
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the individual's freedom to choose whether or not to vote. Russia allows
voters to vote "against all" candidates.
The proposals of negative voting by the election commission and
annulment of polling if neutral votes exceed those of the winning
candidate have been criticised by experts.
It is the duty of every citizen to educate himself / herself about the
agenda of the candidates and to vote conscientiously for the candidate
they think is better. The very purpose of an election is that the
representatives should be chosen by the people. Encouraging people not
to express their preferred candidate goes against the intended purpose.
For this reason, voting is compulsory by law in Australia. Also,
annulling an election would result in much waste of public funds spent
to conduct polls.
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It has been reported that activist Anna Hazare supports the 'Right Not
To Vote'.
[5]
See also
Elections in India
Compulsory voting
Negative voting
References
^
a

b
The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 (http://lawmin.nic.in
/ld/subord/cer1.htm)
1.
^
a

b
http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/ElectoralLaws/OrdersNotifications 2.
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/NOTA_11102013.pdf
^ Proposed electoral reforms (http://y4e.in
/pdf/PROPOSED_ELECTORAL_REFORMS.pdf) (dead link)
3.
^ Clarification of 49-O from Election Commission of India
(http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/press/current/pn051208.pdf)
4.
^ Singh, Abhimanyu (17 April 2011). "Anna's next target is electoral
reform". The Sunday Guardian. Retrieved 24 April 2011.
5.
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O&oldid=604603032"
Categories: Election law in India
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