The EC gets busy

There is only one charitable thing that can be said about the discussion among the Election Commission and political parties on restraining...

There is only one charitable thing that can be said about the discussion among the Election Commission and political parties on restraining opinion polls. It is that the instigators of this idea fail to distinguish between an exit poll and an opinion poll. An exit poll, because it asks voters leaving the polling booths, is generally much more accurate than opinion polls, which are about the way people plan to vote. Exit polls do have the potential to influence voting in a staggered poll process. Voters who are pretty sure of the way they wish to vote may still change their mind after learning the results of an exit poll, because they do not wish to 8220;waste8221; their vote on a loser. Even in this context, the answer is not to forbid exit polls but merely to prohibit polling agencies from publicising their findings until the last vote has been cast.

Opinion polls are another cup of tea altogether. As it happens, they have a history of being wrong in India because voters often choose not to tell the truth about their decision, or simply make up or change their mind at a later date. But what is the EC8217;s role in this, if not as offensive interference? If the implicit argument is that opinion polls influence voting behaviour, perhaps canvassing by political parties should be banned as well, because so does it. For that matter, the existence of parties itself is geared to the pernicious purpose of influencing voters8217; impressionable minds. The media similarly influences opinion. To the EC, this appeal: do away with the lot of them, or spare everyone this puerile debate.

There is the other, less clear-cut matter of voting by the armed forces. A postal ballot would have worked perfectly in a more efficient system. In India, it has patently not worked. It is a profound irony that this much-trumpeted democracy cannot ensure the voting rights of its armed forces, whose job personifies service to the country. The Election Commission is absolutely right to put this on its agenda, but its solution is not the best available. The EC is mistaken in pointing to advanced industrial democracies8217; success in its favour. The proxy method could lend itself only too well to abuse and fraud unless a hugely bureaucratic process of identification is created. That could end up defeating the purpose, with people finding it easier to desist from casting their proxy vote than to prove their credentials. A better alternative is to register men in uniform as local voters where they are posted at the time of an election. This is a less than perfect idea, but it is at least workable. It may be that these men prefer to vote in their home constituency, where their families may live and to which they retain their ties. On the other hand, being so cut off from their home regions, many may be prompted not by the issues and candidates of their constituencies, but party affiliations. An insistence on retaining their rights fully may mean their complete negation in practice. Being registered as local voters at least assures them of their vote being counted, which is more than can be said of either the postal ballot or proxy voting.