negative vote

DILIP PATEL

The state election commission is working out details to enable people to cast a negative vote in local elections, including civic polls. In the coming weeks, the commission will ask the manufacturer of electronic voting machines (EVMs) to add an extra button and install a new software in the instruments to activate the feature.
“We have started the procedure for empowering people with the right of negative voting,” the panel’s secretary, Prakash Shah, told Mirror. “Once modifications are made in EVMs, people of Gujarat will be able to cast a negative vote against a candidate/party in local elections.”
The panel initiated the process for activating the aforesaid feature in EVMs after the state assembly passed the Gujarat Local Authority Laws Amendment Bill, 2009 on December 19. The bill makes voting in polls of seven civic bodies, 26 district panchayats, 223 taluka panchayats and 13,706 village panchayats mandatory and provides people the right to record a negative ballot against a candidate/party.
Gujarat is the only state, which has made these provisions. Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in fact, has described the bill an attempt to strengthen democracy. The state election commission possesses 20,000 EVMs, each of which has 16 buttons. Now, an additional button and new software for the aforementioned feature will be added in all of them.
Meanwhile, the commission and state government are reportedly discussing implications of negative voting. They are apparently exploring the option of holding a local election again if more than 50 per cent of the votes turn out to be negative.