Plea in SC seeks more teeth for NOTA option: Electoral provision is crucial for voters' right to reject

An ongoing hearing in the Supreme Court has brought the controversy over the NOTA (None of the above) option in election back in the spotlight. The debate, which has been reignited due to the apex court hearing, is over whether an election result in a particular constituency should be nullified if the maximum votes are for NOTA. On Monday, the Supreme Court sought responses from the Centre and the Election Commission on a plea seeking to direct the poll panel to nullify such an election result. A petition in the matter has been filed by advocate and BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. The plea has sought a direction to the Election Commission to restrict those candidates and political parties, whose election has been nullified, from taking part in the fresh polls. There already are state-level precedents for such restrictions. In 2018, the Maharashtra state Election Commission issued an order stating that if the NOTA option receives the most votes in a constituency, then none of the contesting candidates will be declared the winner, and fresh elections will be held, as noted by Scroll. Subsequently, the Haryana state Election Commission also issued similar orders, and further barred the candidates who get less votes than NOTA from contesting the next election. However, these directives are applicable only to urban and rural local body polls in the states. The controversy over NOTA is part of a wider debate about the voters’ ‘right to reject’ — and the form that it should take. Origins Before the introduction of the NOTA option,  rule 49-O under the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, allowed voters to register a vote of disapproval or rejection if they felt none of the candidates were worth voting for. However, the secrecy of the ballot was violated as the voter had to inform the presiding officer of his/her decision to not vote and an entry was made in the register against his/her name. This also put voters in the danger of being targetted or harassed by political parties and candidates. On 27 September, 2013, the Supreme Court of India directed the Election Commission of India (EC) to make a provision for none of the above button or NOTA in electronic voting machines (EVMs) or ballot papers. The judgment, pronounced by a bench comprising then-CJI P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjana Desai and Ranjan Gogoi, held that not allowing a person to cast a vote negatively “defeats the very freedom of expression and the right ensured in Article 21 i.e., the right to liberty.” The bench noted, “Negative voting will lead to a systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates. If the right to vote is a statutory right, then the right to reject a candidate is a fundamental right of speech and expression under the Constitution.” The EC introduced the NOTA option for the first time in the 2013 Assembly elections of Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. In 2014, the commission introduced the option in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha elections. According to an analysis of NOTA votes in elections between 2013 and 2017 by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), NOTA secured 1,33,09,577 (1.33 crore) votes in the state Assembly and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. What does a NOTA  vote signify? The NOTA symbol is placed at the end of the list of all candidates on the EVM. It is not a negative vote, but a neutral one that records a voter’s rejection of candidates. It does not hold any value in the final tally. Even if NOTA secures the most number of votes, the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner. The above provision is what is being challenged in the petition that is being considered by the Supreme Court at present. Global examples Other countries where voters are allowed to cast NOTA ballots are Columbia, Ukraine, Brazil, Bangladesh, Finland, Chile, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden. A few states in America also allow NOTA votes. As noted by Hindustan Times, the state of Texas in the US has had the provision since 1975. However, the provision has faced opposition there. With inputs from PTI