Jammu and Kashmir can lead the nation as far as registration of voters’ are concerned. In general if a person turns 18 on January 2 of a given year, he or she has to wait till January 1 of next year to get the right to vote as the Election Commission registers new voters only once a year. This deprives 1.5 crore to 2 crore youths who turn 18 every year from getting registered as voters. The Election Commission of India had suggested to the government to undertake the exercise of registering new voters quarterly as is done in Jammu and Kashmir. If J&K can do, others can also follow that is how Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi said. Centre is contemplating to carry out this exercise only half-yearly because of the geographic placements and climatic conditions. There is also problem faced by voters in the hinterland because of booth-wise declaration of leads. This gives the winning candidate as well as the runners-up a clear idea about the segments of the constituency which did not vote in their favour. The eventual winner wreaks vengeance by impeding development work in those segments, the CEC has said. Booth-wise declaration of election result is totally against the principles of secret ballots. The secrecy of ballot must be maintained for all the people of a booth for the very same reason for which it is to be maintained for an individual that is the revenge any candidate can take against people not voting for a particular candidate. What is surprising that in 70 years no one has challenged this blatant violation of Representation of People Act in any court of the land? The EC has recommended the Centre to make distribution of money among voters by candidates, their agents and supporters a cognizable offence under the Criminal Procedure Code so that offenders could be arrested without bail and suggested hiking the jail term for filing a false affidavit from six months to two years which would bar a candidate from contesting for six years. The demonetisation looks like to dent the role of money power in the coming elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh as there is dearth of currency in circulation. An effort to streamline the electoral process no doubt would go far to improve the system which otherwise is marred by money and muscle powers.
