DISENFRANCHISED INDIA: AN ANALYSIS ON REMOTE VOTING FOR MIGRANT STUDENTS AND WORKERS
ABSTRACT
As young Indians and job aspirants relocate for opportunities in education and employment, they lose their practical access to their Constitutional guarantee of right to vote which has been directly affecting the overall youth turnout. It fallen to 22.78% among 18-29year olds in the 2024 General Elections. This article analyses the constitutional and jurisprudential basis for treating it as a democratic predicament. The article also critically examines the Election Commission’s Remote EVM initiative and provides a comparative understanding on the failures of remote voting in other common law countries. The article concludes in a reformative direction, arguing that a democracy aspiring to be a “Viksit Bharat” by the year 2047 cannot leave the youths outside of the electoral process.
KEYWORDS: youth, migration, democracy, elections, remote voting, Viksit Bharat
INTRODUCTION
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in his final address to the Constituent Assembly on 25th November, 1949, addressed the contradictions that adult suffrage carries in our country and how political equality does not supersede social and economic inequality.[i] The youth of our country are faced with a similar contradiction and such an inequality has taken the facade of migration in search for better educational and job opportunities. The younger generation has migrated for uplifting their social and economic status in the society and it is justified until it comes at the detriment of ensuring a stable democratic discourse. Moving away from their hometowns wherein they have a registered voter id makes it a hassle for them to get adequate leaves to return and action out their democratic right. This is a crippling problem which is amusingly unaddressed and demands immediate attention. A large chunk of our country is unable to enjoy its constitutional right to vote for which necessary set up must be put in place to accommodate such exceptions into the mainstream voting procedure.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY TO UNIVERSAL ADULT FRANCHISE
ARTICLE 326: A BRIEF INSIGHT
Article 326[ii] of the Constitution of India had kept its heart on its sleeves while offering adult suffrage to a mob which was systematically kept uneducated. This contention was raised time and now when Draft Article for the same was introduced in front of the Constituent Assembly suggesting that the Indians were not enlightened enough and that the Article ‘violated the tenets of democracy’. Equality was a principle the Assembly was not ready to negotiate and the same principle led to the acceptance of Article 326, wherein the elections to the House of the People and to the Legislative Assembly of every State was to be held on the basis of adult suffrage. The age bar for it was set to twenty-one at the time of its inception. The wordings of the 61st Amendment Act, 1988[iii] which led to the reduction of the age of voting from twenty-one to eighteen years of age was very clear about its rationale and it very specifically noted that “the present-day youth are literate and enlightened and the lowering of the voting age would provide to the unrepresented youth of the country an opportunity to give vent to their feelings and help them become a part of the political process. The present-day youth are very much politically conscious. It is, therefore, proposed to reduce the voting age from 21 years to 18 years.”[iv] Such an official excerpt makes us realize that the youth has always been a centric argument whenever the question of elections and equality has come up and despite that when faced with a modern migratory issue, there is not a single guiding rule, order or legislation at the present time.
FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS: A BASIC STRUCTURE DOCTRINE
The Kesavananda Bharati case[v] gave India a landmark decision which was a safeguard our country desperately needed. Heard by the largest bench of 13 judges and formulated by a historic 7:6 majority decision, the basic structure doctrine of the Constitution was propounded. It states that certain fundamental features of the constitution, namely ‘democracy, secularism, federalism, and the rule of law’ cannot be amended by the Parliament and gave the Court the power of judicial review. Nani Palkhivala, a legal stalwart and the lead counsel for the petitioner, gave the Constitution of our country a shield against the overarching power of the Parliament but also ensured that it remains a “living document”, actively responding to the changing aspirations of the nation and its people. The discussion and the list extended to include the principle of “free and fair election” when Justice Khanna laid down the importance of the same in the proceedings of Indira Gandhi v Raj Narain, 1975.[vi] Equal access to voting procedures is an integral part of conducting a “free and fair election” which is currently being denied to imminent number of citizens.[vii]
Roscoe Pound has discussed this unequal level playing field in his theory of “social engineering”.[viii]Herein, he classified individual interests into three broad categories i.e. individual interests, public interests and social interests. The latter is the interest of the society at large inclusive of both general and individual life, which means that it is necessary to ensure maximum possible participation of individuals in social and political institutions. The tension between the three interests is to be aligned but the current electoral regime fails to do so as it only protects a narrow public interest by providing administrative simplicity but at the cost of larger individual and social interest which is in providing a broader base for democratic participation. Pound insisted that law should be influenced by this jurisprudence which aims at interest balancing and should go to lengths to resolve the administrative shortcomings that come in the way of constitutional guarantees, which in the present case is the constitutional core of universal suffrage. The Constitutional vision for a “Viksit Bharat” by the year 2047 can only be achieved if there is an elimination of the aspects which is frozen and refuses to change with the tide. Pound argued that the existing legal systems function on a set of unwritten assumptions about the expectations of a society at a given stage or time which are coined as “jural postulates”.[ix] These expectations cannot be understood in isolation and must be in conjunction with the changing time and relevance. A jural postulate which was valid for an Indian diaspora at the time of the birth of democracy is not relevant for the mobile society it has converted into. A legal system which does not adapt to the postulates is one at the road of losing its relevance.
FAILED ATTEMPTS TO REFORM
Overall, 65.79% voter turnout had been recorded in the General Elections 2024 at the polling stations.[x] Between 18-29 years, the total percentage of electors across India was only 22.78%.[xi] These statistics show the grim reality of youth participation in the elections which decide the fate of our nation. It is absurd to note that the most politically active and educationally forward Kerala students have noted to have the least percentage of turnout at a meagre 18.04 %.[xii] Many term this as the lackadaisical attitude of the younger generations but fail to address the systemic problems acting as a catalyst to these statistics. The students of the newer generations refuse to fit the boxes built by their parents and often venture out to other cities and sometimes even countries looking for better educational and job prospects. Such migratory patterns make it impossible for them to be back for the election season without being penalised for their absence from respective educational institutions or job firms. “Migration based disenfranchisement” is the reality we are faced with and it concerned the Election Commission of India after the General Elections of 2019. His concern centred around the issue of over 30 Crore electors not exercising their franchise.[xiii] The reasons for such non participation can be multifold but a prominent role player has been domestic migration. In a press release, the government stated that absence of central database owing to the delayed census do not point at an exact figure of migration but the analysis of available data in public domain shows ‘work, marriage and education related migration’ as prominent elements of domestic migration. The then Chief Election Commissioner of India had first hand learnings about the migration issue from his trek to Dumak village, Chamoli district and started working towards a system which would allow migrant voters to exercise their vote from their current place of residence.[xiv] The ECI team pondered on this and came up with an inclusive model to facilitate electoral participation of migrants across different socio-economic status while juxtaposing with alternative voting methods. The government, finally in the late 2022, was able to address the issue at hand and came up with a prototype aimed at bringing a successful technological solution i.e. Multi Constituency Remote Electronic Voting Machines.
The Commission has completed the manufacturing of the prototype in collaboration with two Public Sector Units, that are already functioning towards the creation of the existing EVMs, which are the Bharat Electronic Limited and the Electronics Corporation of India. These Remote Electronic Voting Machines have adopted its technological prowess from time-tested ‘M3 EVM’ models. The ‘M3 EVM’ was produced in the year 2013 and has special security features such as the ‘Tamper Detection’ which makes an EVM inoperative the moment anyone tries to open the machine and the ‘Self diagnostic’ feature which checks that the EVM is fully switched on at all times. RVMs have been modelled to handle the burden of 72 multiple constituencies from one polling booth. The machine would be a standalone device which would need no connectivity to operate. The voter was supposed to pre-register oneself for the remote facility and verify his/her details at the home constituency. Such verification would be given a green pass before allowing the remote voter to cast their vote in the elections. Despite such modern technological inputs, concerns still persisted. Firstly, there were administrative challenges such as where shall the booth be placed, how many booths would be required at a single place, enumerating the self-declaration of remote voters, provision of polling agents at remote voting booths, mechanisms to ensure that impersonation does not happen and most importantly make sure that the Model Code of Conduct gets followed at all times of the procedure. Secondly, the Commission was faced with legal challenges as there were no existing legislations which addressed such a newly introduced mechanism. The terms such as ‘migrant voter’ and ‘remote voting’ had to be precisely defined so that the core idea of introducing RVMs do not get hampered and not be used to justify absurd situations. Moreover, there was an urgent need to add and amend these introductions into the existing legislations and rules which were dealing with the election procedure, namely the Representation of Peoples’ Act, 1951, ‘The Conduct of Election Rules, 1961’, and ‘the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.’ Thirdly, the most paramount hardship was the technological challenges. The machine prototype was ready but its execution had a question mark. The Commission struggled with strategic questions such as what would be the method of remote voting, how will the remote voters get familiar with the new technology and how will the counting of votes would be done when votes need to be transmitted to the Returning Officer located in other States. The Commission was steering forward with its initiative and further invited all recognized 8 National and 57 State Political Parties to demonstrate the functioning of the prototype under the presence of a Technical Expert Committee. Written views and relevant feedbacks of the Political Parties were to be taken under consideration in order to bring befitting solutions to the problems enumerated above.[xv]
Such Committee was never convened leaving the mechanism hanging in between without further discussion and deliberations. Such an outcome left the migrant students and workers with no alternative help from the Government. The Opposition firmly discouraged the demonstration and asked for more time to continue discussions upon the importance of such a mechanism and following that the date for written responses was extended to a month after. Instead of deliberating upon a probable solution, parties put forth a giant of questions and queries against the new technology. The Opposition failed to realize the importance of RVMs and instead of providing solutions and aggravating the talks on this issue, they rather chose to focus on issues which they considered significant enough to be looked into on a priority basis. The RVMs were opposed by a unanimous decision raising concerns about the sanctity of the system. The Commission was ready to entertain suggestions and queries but rejecting a beneficiary idea on the face of it without making actual attempts to understand its functioning and the larger goal it is supposed to serve, shows that what does not concern the Government directly will get derailed until it becomes the need of the hour. Opposition called the mechanism “controversial, irrelevant and that the Commission was lacking transparency.”[xvi] In India, all the policies and decisions which would benefit the people have to go through the tussles of the ruling and opposition parties, making deliberations on public interest become almost impossible. This is how the talks on RVMs have stalled leaving the issue at hand unaddressed.
REMOTE VOTING MECHANISM IN COMPARATIVE COMMON LAW COUNTRIES
Professor Essex, who is a professor at Western University in London, Ontario, who studies cryptography and cybersecurity stated, “Paper ballots can be counted in front of election scrutineers to verify the results. There are concerns an electronic system could be hacked and ballots altered. He compares online voting to officials counting ballots behind closed doors.”[xvii] These are one of the many concerns raised when Canada was exploring its first online voting venture. One must think that it is easier to conduct these technologies in areas with comparatively less population and robust technological backing but in real they are faced with similar contradictions. The 2018 elections of Ontario, Canada turned into a massive destructive plan and the voting hours had to be extended. There was a third-party restriction on the bandwidth which limited the voter traffic.[xviii] Australia on the other hand had started moving towards online options in the wake of the ballot paper loss in the 2013 ‘Western Australia Senate’ election.[xix] In 2015, more than 280,000 votes were received online in the New South Wales election from personal electronic devices which is the largest-ever binding election to use online voting. Such a demonstration did not encourage rather made the Australians rethink the level of trust they can put on such a mechanism and the Joint Committee did not allow the change. Moreover, UK has time and again noted its concern around online and remote options of voting and asks the countries to refrain from depending upon online technology.[xx] Still certain countries do allow for online voting only for certain exception cases and only in specific areas. The failures and concerns documented in Ontario, New South Wales and UK share the same thread of online voting which had completely altered the existing ballot system which is in contrast to the RVMs introduced in India which act as a standalone device working without network connectivity. Moreover, the Indian diaspora has not yet attained a significant amount of general technological and electronic machinery education which would make them easily fall into cyber traps. To sum up the Internation experience, we can conclude that online voting is not a feasible option but it does not essentially act as a precedent of failure of remote voting mechanisms. In the wake of such instances, India must not replace the Remote EVMs with the online mode of voting as it would be almost impossible to keep the system free from potential cyber threats. The question of utmost concern is that the RVMs itself are not full proof and need further exhaustive changes and trials.
REFORMS AND SUGGESTIONS
The existing democratic countries do not have a trust worthy model that could tackle remote voting with ease. Sometimes the inspiration that we look for outside is present right in our homes. An indigenous research paper had proposed fixes to the existing EVM models which could solve the problem of authentication that comes with the RVMs.[xxi] The research talks about retaining the two- unit EVM design i.e. the controlling unit and the balloting unit but talks of the replacement of the manual Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) verification with a two-factor authentication. The authentication would include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) which is a short-range wireless technology used to identify and track people and it eases the procedure of verification of identity which is further paired with a finger print scan so as to make sure that there is no forgery of cards and identity theft.[xxii] The core idea is to club mere credentials with biological proof of identity. Though it does not completely solve the problems but at the least provides solutions for certain concerns attached to the RVMs. The main concern flagged by the opposition which had halted the RVM demonstration in India was not having enough clarity on the definition of the terms. The Commission could look into providing clearer objectives and define the elements better for ease in amendments to legislations and rules. The concerns with the trust and integrity of the system will only be put to check after trial runs of the same be held across the constituencies of India providing a full picture of the shortcoming the system need to work on.
CONCLUSION
The Constitutional right to vote is not one of convenience but a promise owed to each and every citizen of India. The reality of India’s migrant students and workers call for an architectural change in the existing stagnant system that has failed to mold itself with time. Despite the safeguard under the Article 326 of the Constitution, the establishment of it as the basic structure and the jurisprudential backing, the delay in action is because of the lacking political will of the Government. As Dr. B. R. Ambedkar had very wisely quoted, “Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellow men.”[xxiii] This quote is impeccable in describing the current situation wherein the Government has been refusing to adopt the communicated experience and how enabling democracy can only be ensured when it accommodates the varied lived experiences. A country that lets its young citizens fall outside the democratic avenues is one that has not realized its full potential as a democracy.
[i] Constituent Assembly Debates, vol XI, 25 November 1949.
[ii] ‘Article 326: Elections to the House of the People and to the Legislative Assemblies of States to be on the basis of Adult Suffrage’ (Constitution of India, Centre for Law and Policy Research).
[iii] Constitution (Sixty-first Amendment) Act 1988 (India).
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala (1973) 4 SCC 225.
[vi] Indira Nehru Gandhi v Raj Narain 1975 Supp SCC 1.
[vii] Venkatesh Nayak, ‘The Basic Structure of the Indian Constitution’ (ConstitutionNet, International IDEA) https://constitutionnet.org/vl/item/basic-structure-indian-constitution.
[viii] Karandeep Makkar, ‘Law as a Tool for Social Engineering in India’ Manupatra Roundup https://manupatra.com/roundup/331/articles/law%20as%20tool.pdf.
[ix] Rida Fatima Dahar, ‘Balancing Justice and Rules: An Analysis of Roscoe Pound’s Theory of Social Engineering’ (Lex Lumen Research Journal, 10 April 2026) https://lexlumen.site/balancing-justice-and-rules-an-analysis-of-roscoe-pounds-theory-of-social-engineering/.
[x] Election Commission, ‘Election Commission 65.79% Voter Turnout Recorded at Polling Stations in GE 2024’ (Press Information Bureau, 6 June 2024)
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2023231®=48&lang=2.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Election Commission of India, Atlas 2024 (Election Commission of India, 2025)
https://www.eci.gov.in/EBooks/atlas-2024/files/basic-html/page45.html.
[xiii] Election Commission of India, ‘ECI Ready to Pilot Remote Voting for Domestic Migrants; Migrant Voter Need Not Travel Back to Home State to Vote’ (Press Information Bureau, 29 December 2022) https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1887248®=48&lang=2.
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi] ‘Opposition Unanimously Opposed EC’s Proposal of Remote Voting Machine, Says Digvijaya Singh’ (Times of India, 15 January 2023) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/news/opposition-unanimously-opposed-ecs-proposal-of-remote-voting-machine-says-digvijay-singh/videoshow/97010742.
[xvii] ‘Online Voting Is Growing in Canada, Raising Calls for Clear Standards’ CBC News (21 October 2022) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/online-voting-ontario-elections-1.6623659.
[xviii] Ibid.
[xix] Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Second Interim Report on the Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2013 Federal Election: An Assessment of Electronic Voting Options (Parliament of Australia, November 2014) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/2013_General_Election/Second_Interim_Report/Chapter1.
[xx] Angie Hesham Abdo, ‘Electronic Voting’ (Written evidence, EVO0023, May 2026) https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/166737/html/.
[xxi] G Keerthana and others, ‘Impressive Smart Card Based Electronic Voting System’ (2015) 4(3) IJRET 284.
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii] B R Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste (1936).