Are we doing Elections right?

Elections, unsurprisingly, are called the festivals of Indian democracy. Close to a billion people are expected to participate in the 2024 general elections, making it the largest democratic exercise in the world. In the 2019 general elections, the total expenditures made by the political parties and the government were estimated at around 60,000 crore rupees (7 billion dollars), making it the costliest election. Besides, elections also supercharge our economy by boosting consumer spending.

Conducting elections in India is not an ordinary feat and certainly seemed an improbable task after our independence from the British. Despite its recent criticisms of losing its autonomy, the Election Commission of India has played a stellar role in ensuring that India had a free and fair election since its independence.

During its first general elections in 1952,  India had a literacy rate close to 20%. Besides teaching people how to vote, most never knew they could have a say on who could assume power. As this article beautifully explains, the new government had no experience conducting this mammoth exercise. But in the same vein, we also had no experience drafting a constitution and building democratic institutions. Women hesitated to reveal their original names in the electoral rolls and preferred to be called their male counterparts' wives or mothers.

We not only battled patriarchy during the first general election but also created a social revolution by expanding the right to vote to women immediately after asserting ourselves as a sovereign nation. It would surprise you to note that women in Britain got their suffrage only by 1918, and the women in the US got theirs by 1920. We were not only a precocious democracy but also torchbearers of democratic values.

Now, let us come back to the original question.  Are we doing the elections right?  

We do a stellar job in organizing the elections but not so much in the method we do elections. Consider the 2019 Indian general elections for 543 parliamentary seats. BJP secured 37.36% of overall votes and won 303 seats, while Congress secured 19.49% and won only 52 seats.  Let's dice this data and analyze it from a fresh perspective.  Assuming that there is no first post-the-past system and if the vote share is mapped to represent the strength of the parties in the parliament, Congress would have 106 seats instead of 52.

If we keenly analyse the vote share, the BJP has secured 37.36% of the total votes polled. Which means 62.64% did not vote for the BJP.  If elections are indeed the voice of the people, we have a party which formed the government despite the majority saying no to them.

To understand this paradox, we must know what the first-past-the-post system is. Assume three candidates are contesting in a constituency. If anyone gets 50% or more votes, they are declared the winner.  In India, we call our system first past the post, but in reality, we follow a plurality system.  This means that whoever secures the maximum number of polls wins. The candidate does not have to breach the 50% mark to be declared as winner. They must ensure they get the maximum votes compared to their competitors, even if their lead margin is trivial.

The problems with this approach are plenty. To begin with, the candidate does not need to reach out to everyone in the constituency but to those who they think will vote for them.  This means that the elected candidate does not represent the whole constituency.  

Also, If you look at the 2019 elections, BJP won 40 seats by less than 50,000 votes margin. The 40 seats might seem small, but it does make a difference because that delta determines whether or not the government has an absolute majority in the parliament. It is important to note that absolute majorities must be rare events in any democracy.  Bigger parties should learn to coexist with smaller parties and form coalition governments. This will force the big parties to fall in line and not rig the system in their favour or abuse the democratic institutions.

Hasan Minhaj, a comedian and television host, explains how the US does its elections wrong. He unravels how negative partisanship (the idea that the voters form their political opinions not based on virtues and ideals but primarily based on the party they hate) is because of the plurality system.  The candidates, ergo, the parties who contest the elections, have to invest a lot, both effort and money. A winner-takes-all-all approach leaves the losers with nothing. This makes the parties go to any extent and win the elections at any cost -  Cash for a vote, dog-whistling and more.

So how to do it right? Certainly not by introducing NOTA and calling it a reform.  One of the major defects of the First-past-the-post system is that it leads to vote wastage. To eliminate this, we can take a cue from how we do presidential elections in our country. This type of election is called the Instant Run-off method or Ranked-choice voting. Here, voters are required to rank their preferences instead of casting their vote only for one person. If the candidate hits the absolute majority, they are automatically declared the winner. If the outcome is not conclusive, then in multiple rounds of vote counting, candidates with the least votes are eliminated and their votes are transferred to the rest, and whoever remains at last with a maximum number of votes is declared the winner.  

The problem with this approach is our candidates contesting per constituency is very high. In the 2019 elections, the number is 14.8. It takes time to educate voters on how to rank and to do it quickly.  It is more effective on a paper ballot system than in an electronic voting machine. There is also a donkey vote problem. Regardless of these shortcomings, we must find a way out of the plurality system.

Or our government could take wisdom from Jayaprakash Narayana, a former IAS officer and founder of the Lok Satta movement who has contributed a lot in the field of electoral reforms.  In this article, he argues that the time has come for a proportional representation system. More specifically, mixed-member proportional representation.  

In countries like Germany and New  Zealand, the voters vote for more than one member from their constituency.  Because our parliament seats are tied to the constituencies, it is best not to entirely revoke the existing first-past-the-post system. But along with this, we can also entitle voters to vote for the political parties.  This means voters will have two votes - one for the candidate representing their constituency and another for the party. The outcome of the party vote is determined by the proportional representation method.

In this way, smaller parties will get representation in the parliament, and it becomes easier for these smaller parties to contest elections.  Also, Germany and New Zealand seldom have governments with absolute majority.

Vox Dei (government) Vox populi is better reflected only when we reform the way we do elections. More than a hundred countries have abandoned the first-past-the-post system, switching to more effective ways of voting.  It is ironic that countries which call themselves the mother of democracies (The UK, the US, India, etc) are the ones persisting with plurality systems. A better way of elections begets better polity, ergo, a better future!