(A detailed version of this chapter in notes #301.040 on http://facebook.com/mehtarahulc )
(to see book in pdf format, pls see http://rahulmehta.com/301.htm )
Download this chapter 40 : http://www.righttorecall.info/301.pdf
Electoral reforms I propose
1. Why all electoral reforms without Right to Recall MP, MLA are useless
2. Right to Recall MP draft via Gazette Notification
3. Right to Recall MP draft via Amendment in People’s Representation Act
4. Explanations on RTR-MP
5. Right to Recall MLA draft
6. Right to Recall Corporator draft
7. Right to Recall Sarpanch draft
8. Direct elections of CM, PM, Sarpanch, Mayor
9. Banning EVMs, back to paper ballots
10. Conducting polls on one day
11. Simplifying election form filling
12. Raising election deposits for wealthy candidates
13. Increasing number of citizen-voters who propose a candidate on form
14. Restricting number of candidates
15. Install Recall Voting (IRV) aka Preferential Voting
16. Eliminate optional withdrawal of candidates
17. Election and Proportionate Representation in Rajyasabha
18. Inner Party Democracy
19. Campaign finance changes, and reducing culture of giving gifts to voters
And many others. Details will be placed at http://rahulmehta.com later
40.1 Why ALL electoral reforms are useless without Right to Recall MPs, MLAs
We talk about electoral reforms, so that “chances” of getting bad person elected reduce and chances of getting good person getting elected increases. But unless we have Right to Recall, the chances that next elected candidate will become corrupt will remain extremely high. So most urgent and important task is RTR MLAs, RTR MPs etc. But then question is : existing MPs will never enact RTR laws as it goes against their financial interests. Then shall we wait till next election and replace MPs? Well, that will hurt us for next five years and will only benefit existing MPs – they can take bribes without worry for next five years. And the possibility of next batch of MPs selling out remains high. So solution is to raise a mass movement asking citizens to force existing PM, CMs to print TCP. Once PM and CMs have been forced to print TCP, citizens can enact RTR over PM, CMs, Supreme Court judges etc within a few months. These points have been outlined in previous chapters of this book.
40.2 Central\State Govt Gazette Notification draft for RTR MP
The key parts are clause-2, clause-3 and clause-6
# Officer
Procedure / instruction
1 —– (1.1) The word citizen would mean a registered voter.
(1.2) The word “may” does not imply any moral-legal binding. It clearly means “may” or “need not”.
2 District Collector(DC)
PM orders DC, that if a citizen of India comes to DC and wishes to be candidate in coming MP election, then DC shall accept a fee equal to deposit of MP election and register that person as a candidate-in-waiting for MP election. DC will issue serial number and post his name on the website of PM.
3 Talati , Patwari (or his clerks)
(3.1) PM orders Patwari (or Talati or Village officer) that if a citizen comes in person to Patwari’s office, pays Rs 3 fee, and approves at most five persons for MP position, the Patwari would enter his approvals in the computer and would give receipt showing his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
(3.2) If Patwari does not have PC etc, then DC shall put this operation in office of Tahsildaar till the Talati gets PC etc to put this system.
(3.3) PM or DC may create a system which gives SMS feedback to the citizen similar to credit card transaction
(3.4) PM’s secretary will provide the necessary software to Patwari and DC will provide the necessary hardware to Patwari.
(3.5) DC may provide equipment to the Patwari which would capture the photo and finger print of the citizen, and can give receipt with the citizen’s finger print and photo.
(3.6) DC may create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type kiosks, SMS and internet.
(3.7) PM may create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type kiosks, SMS and internet.
4 Talati, Patwari
The Talati will put the approvals of the citizens on PM’s website with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5 Talati, Patwari
If the voter comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6 MP
If an alternate candidate gets approval which are
(6.1) 10% (of all voters) more than votes of the sitting MP OR
(6.2) over 50% of ALL voters in that constituency
and are also more than approvals obtained by the sitting MP, then the sitting MP may or need not resign in 14 days.
7 Speaker of Loksabha
If the sitting MP does not resign in 14 days, then the Speaker may or need not call a motion in the Parliament to expel that MP. The decision of the Speaker shall be final.
8 MPs
The MPs may or need not approve the motion to expel that MP
9 Election Commission
If the MP resigns or is expelled, EC may conduct new election as per the norms. In the next election, the expelled MP may contest.
10 —- For the purpose of clause-6, the approvals of the voters who registered before the election will not count. The number of voters will mean number of voters on the day of election. The exact numbers of each Constituency will be published by EC and decision of EC will be final.
11 —- The PM may change the thresholds in clause-6 of this Gazette Notification. The threshold will be same for entire country.
12 —- At the time of election, the candidate may or may not submit an affidavit to Election Officer stating whether he supports this Right to Recall MP Gazette Notification or not.
If the above draft is printed as Gazette Notification issued by Cabinet, then clause-7 and clause-8 are needed to remove the MP, because MP can be expelled by Parliament and Speaker, and the decision of Parliament and Speaker cannot be reviewed by any Court. So if MPs expel that MP for whatever reason, High Court or Supreme Court cannot reverse the expulsion. Thus using existing law-draft and above Gazette Notification draft, a weak form of RTR-MP can be brought.
40.3 Amendment to People’s Representation Act to enact RTR MP
# Officer
Procedure / instruction
1 – (1.1) The word citizen would mean a registered voter.
(1.2) The word “may” does not imply any moral-legal binding. It clearly means “may” or “need not”.
2 District Collector (DC)
If a citizen of India comes to DC and wishes to be candidate in coming MP election, then DC shall accept a fee equal to deposit of MP election and register that person as a candidate-in-waiting for MP election. DC will issue a serial number and post his name on the website of PM.
3 Talati , Patwari (or his clerks)
(3.1) If a citizen comes in person to Patwari’s office, pays Rs 3 fee , and approves at most five persons for MP position, the Patwari would enter his approvals in the computer and would give receipt showing his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
(3.2) If Patwari does not have PC etc, then DC shall put this operation in office of Tahsildaar till the Talati gets PC etc to put this system.
(3.3) PM or DC may create a system which gives SMS feedback to the citizen similar to credit card transaction
(3.4) PM’s secretary will provide the necessary software to Patwari and DC will provide the necessary hardware to Patwari.
(3.5) DC may provide equipment to the Patwari which would capture the photo and finger print of the citizen, and can give receipt with the citizen’s finger print and photo.
(3.6) DC may create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type kiosks, SMS and internet.
(3.7) EC may create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type kiosks, SMS and internet.
4 Talati, Patwari
The Talati will put the approvals of the citizens on PM’s website with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5 Talati, Patwari
If the voter comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6 Election Commission
If an alternate candidate gets approval which are
(6.1) 10% (of all voters) more than votes of the sitting MP OR
(6.2) over 50% of ALL voters in that constituency
and are also more than approvals obtained by the sitting MP, then the Election Commission shall order a Recall-cum-Replacement Poll in that Constituency
7 Election Commission
In the Recall-cum-Replacement Poll, the sitting MP’s name will be first on the ballot and he need not file a nomination form. The 14 persons with highest approval counts, and having over 5% of all voters will also be in the ballot. The ballot cannot have any other names in this Recall-cum-Replacement Poll.
8 Election Commission
If a candidate gets 10% (of all voters) votes more than sitting MP got in the past election, then EC would declare that candidate as the new MP and relieve existing MP from his service.
9 Election Commission
For the purpose of this section, the approvals of the voters who registered before the election will not count. The number of voters will mean number of voters on the day of election. The exact numbers of each Constituency will be published by EC and decision of EC will be final.
10 All Candidates
At the time of election, candidate may or may not submit an affidavit to Election Officer stating whether he supports this Right to Recall MP clauses.
IMO, the non-80G-activists should ask MPs to add the above clauses the People’s Representation Act. The draft given in previous section has plus point that non-80G-activists can ask the Cabinet Ministers (PM or CM) to print that in next month’s Gazette Notification and process can start right away without approval of MPs.
To start with, I would request non-80G-activists to ask PM to print the draft given in this section-40.2 in the Gazette and ask MPs to present that draft as Legislation in the Parliament..
40.4 Details and explanations
40.4.1 Explanation of code and numbers by examples
a. Say a constituency has 1500,000 voters. Say 800,000 voted. Say winning candidate got 360,000. Now if alternate candidate gets approvals which are (10% of all voters) i.e. (10% of 1500,000) i.e. 150,000 more than votes candidate got, i.e. 510,000 approvals, then there will be recall poll. And in recall poll, if winner gets below 510,000 votes, the sitting MP shall continue. And if winner gets over 510,000 votes, then next person will become MP.
b. Say a constituency has 1500,000 voters. Say 900,000 voted. Say winning candidate got 800,000. Now if alternate candidate gets approvals which are (50% of all voters) i.e. (50% of 750,000) and approval of sitting MP now are below 750,000, then there will be recall poll. And in recall poll, if winner gets below 750,000 votes, the sitting MP shall continue.
40.4.2 Why voter-buying and voter-threatening is impossible ; and system is safe
Approval buying is not viable : The citizens can cancel approval any day. So if some tries to pay Rs 100 to 510,000 voters and get approvals, then citizens may approve him, and cancel his approvals next day. Also, such approval buying can trigger filing of approvals in favor of some other candidate as well.
Threatening voters is not viable : No one can threaten lakhs of voters on daily basis.
Approval filing is safer that bank transaction : Not just the person walks to Talati’s office to file approval, he gets SMS feedback similar to credit card usage and the equipment will take his pix and finger print. Of course, on day-one, these features wont be available, but any Collector can implement them in 3 to 6 months or else citizens should demand his expulsion. With picture, finger print and SMS feedback, the system is safer than bank transaction. If someone can hack this system, he will rather hack a backing system. And when system comes on ATM or SMS, it is equally safe.
40.4.3 Cost estimate
A typical MP constituency has 15 lakh voters. So even if all 15 lakh voters were to file for approvals at Talati’s office, the cost will be about Rs 45 lakhs. When Collector or PM or EC implement the system by which approvals can be taken on ATM or SMS, the cost per citizen per approval filing decreases to few paise. So even if all 15 lakh citizen-voters were to file approvals, the costs would be below a few lakh rupees. The cost of recall election is same as cost of election — about Rs 15 per voter as disclosed by EC.
40.4.4 Does the word “may” weaken the code?
NO. Say a constituency has 1500,000 voters. Say an alternate candidate has approval of several lakhs of citizens, much more than sitting MP. Now if sitting MP, Speaker of Loksabha and other MPs chose to ignore the citizens, each of whom knows that lakhs of citizens are with him, the fire-works that would result will ensure that no political worker affiliated with that MP can survive. All in all, the sitting MP will resign and if not, to save the fire-works, other MPs will expel him. Further, when the draft is passed as Legislation as amendment (addition) to PRA, the word may can removed and replaced by “shall”.
40.4.5 Signature based recall method vs appearance based recall method
US created RTR Police Chief procedure in 1750 and used signature based method (as opposed to my proposed method, which needs appearance of citizen, not his signature). That’s because back then, population of each county was in few thousands, County Offices had signature of all citizens, voter registration needed signature and Govt offices used to be sparse. Further, Jury System ensured low corruption, and so RTR was less needed.
But today in India, signature based procedure will be a disaster. A signature based procedure is a tool that psuedo-recallists use to ensure a “no right to recall” procedure. Today, some 50% adults do NOT know how to sign!! Collector does NOT have signature specimen of even 5% citizens and they are poorly tabulated. In case of banks, the signature method works because banks take signature at the time of opening account and cheque-book is given by the bank. So the cheque-paper itself ensures good faith and in addition, signature is compared. But given that Collector doesn’t give any “recall cheque book” nor has signature specimen, such procedure will be useless.
The psuedo-recallist like The Anna deliberately propose signature based system so that they can give bad name to Right to Recall. And MNC-paid TV-channels are support then so that non-80G-activists get attracted by such psuedo-recallists and waste away time after unviable signature based procedure.
In the procedure I proposed, the citizen has to appear in person at Talati’s office and his finger print will be taken, and he gets SMS feedback for his approvals. So if someone fakes say 50-100 approvals, then when 50-100 people get SMS, surely some would take actions and using finger prints, the person can be tracked back. And later, with ATM and SMS sending, procedure becomes cheap, easier to use and is still equally secure. After all, people buy shares on mobile phones. So if mobile phones were insecure, this would not be happening.
40.4.6 Positive Recall vs negative recall
Positive Recall is when citizens have to agree and prove an alternative before removal of sitting person, and negative recall is when citizen have option of simply removing without proving agreement on the replacement. The positive recall reduces possibility of chaos that vacuum can create and makes recall easier, because in negative recall, citizens may postpone o avoid recall due to fear that next replacement may be worse. Positive recall also rules out possibility that a person will be expelled for not doing something that no one can do, because citizens will see that no replacement can do that either. So the procedure I have proposed for Right to Recall MP used positive recall concept rather than negative recall concept.
40.4.7 Right to Recall MP draft in plain text format
Many activists have to post the draft on internet forums. To make their life easy, I am putting the above draft which is given in tabular format in plain text format.
FIRST DRAFT (which can be issued as Gazette Notification by PM)
———————————————————————————-
1. (1.1) The word citizen would mean a registered voter.
(1.2) The word “may” does not imply any moral-legal binding. It means “may” or “need not”.
2. [Instruction for District Collector aka DC] PM orders DC, that if a citizen of India comes to DC and wishes to be candidate in coming MP election, then DC shall accept a fee equal to deposit of MP election and register that person as a candidate-in-waiting for MP election. DC will issue a serial number and post his name on the website of PM.
3. [Instruction to Talati , Patwari(or his clerks)] (3.1) PM orders Patwari (or Talati or Village officer) that if a citizen comes in person to Patwari’s office, pays Rs 3 fee , and approves at most five persons for MP position, the Patwari would enter his approvals in the computer and would give receipt showing his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
(3.2) If Patwari does not have PC etc, then DC shall put this operation in office of Tahsildaar till the Talati gets PC etc to put this system.
(3.3) DC may create a system which gives SMS feedback to the citizen similar to credit card transaction
(3.4) DC may provide equipment to the Patwari which would capture the photo and finger print of the citizen, and can give receipt with the citizen’s finger print and photo.
(3.5) PM’s secretary will provide the necessary software to Patwari and DC will provide the necessary hardware to Patwari.
(3.6) DC may create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type Kiosks, SMS and internet.
(3.7) PM may create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type Kiosks, SMS and internet.
4. [Instruction to Talati, Patwari] The Talati will put the approvals of the citizens on PM’s website with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5. [Instruction Talati, Patwari] If the voter comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6. [Instruction to MP] If an alternate candidate gets approval which are
(6.1) 10% (of all voters) more than votes of the sitting MP OR
(6.2) over 50% of ALL voters in that constituency and are also more than approvals obtained by the sitting MP, then the sitting MP may or need not resign in 7 days.
7. [Instruction to Speaker of Loksabha] If the sitting MP does not resign in 7 days, then the Speaker may or need not call a motion in the Parliament to expel that MP.. The decision of the Speaker shall be final.
8. [Instruction to MP] The MPs may or need not approve the motion to expel that MP’
9. [Instruction to Election Commission] If the MP resigns or is expelled, EC may conduct new election as per the norms. In the next election, the expelled MP may contest.
10. For the purpose of clause-6, the approvals of the voters who registered after the election will not count. The number of voters will mean number of voters on the day of election. The exact numbers of each Constituency will be published by EC and decision of EC will be final.
11. The PM may change the thresholds in clause-6 of this Gazette Notification. The threshold will be same for entire country.
12. At the time of election, the candidate may or may not submit an affidavit to Election Officer stating whether he supports this Right to Recall MP Gazette Notification or not.
—— end of first RTR-MP draft in plain text ———–
SECOND DRAFT (amendment to People’s Representation Act)
——————————————————————————
1. (1.1) The word citizen would mean a registered voter.
(1.2) The word “may” does not imply any moral-legal binding. It clearly means “may” or “need not”.
2.. (instruction for DC i.e. District Collector) If a citizen of India comes to DC and wishes to be candidate in coming MP election, then DC shall accept a fee equal to deposit of MP election and register that person as a candidate-in-waiting for MP election. DC will issue a serial number and post his name on the website of PM.
3. (instruction for Talati, Patwari or his clerks)
(3.1) If a citizen comes in person to Patwari’s office, pays Rs 3 fee , and approves at most five persons for MP position, the Patwari would enter his approvals in the computer and would give receipt showing his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
(3.2) If Patwari does not have PC etc, then DC shall put this operation in office of Tahsildaar till the Talati gets PC etc to put this system.
(3.3) PM or DC may create a system which gives SMS feedback to the citizen similar to credit card transaction
(3.4) PM’s secretary will provide the necessary software to Patwari and DC will provide the necessary hardware to Patwari.
(3.5) DC will provide equipment to the Patwari which would capture the photo and finger print of the citizen, and can give receipt with the citizen’s finger print and photo. (3.6) DC will create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type kiosks, SMS and internet.(3.7) EC will create a system where in citizen can submit/change his approvals over ATM type kiosks, SMS and internet.
4. (instruction for Talati, Patwari) The Talati will put the approvals of the citizens on PM’s website with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5. (instruction for Talati, Patwari) If the voter comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6. (instruction for Election Commission) If an alternate candidate gets approval which are
(6.1) 10% (of all voters) more than votes of the sitting MP OR
(6.2) over 50% of ALL voters in that constituency and are also more than approvals obtained by the sitting MP, then the Election Commission shall order a Recall-cum-Replacement Poll in that Constituency
7. (instruction for Election Commission) In the Recall-cum-Replacement Poll, the sitting MP’s name will be first on the ballot and he need not file a nomination form. The 14 persons with highest approval counts, and having over 5% of all voters will also be in the ballot. The ballot cannot have any other names in this Recall-cum-Replacement Poll.
8. (instruction for Election Commission) If a candidate gets 10% (of all voters) votes more than sitting MP got in the past election, then EC would declare that candidate as the new MP and relieve existing MP from his service.
9. (instruction for Election Commission) For the purpose of this section, the approvals of the voters who registered before the election will not count. The number of voters will mean number of voters on the day of election. The exact numbers of each Constituency will be published by EC and decision of EC will be final.
10. (instruction for All Candidates) At the time of election, candidate may or may not submit an affidavit to Election Officer stating whether he supports this Right to Recall MP clauses.
—— end of second RTR-MP draft in plain text ———–
40.5 Central\State Govt Gazette Notification draft for Right to Recall MLA
The reader is requested to first read the “Right to Recall MP” draft and its explanation, because to save repetition , many commons things are not stated here.
The Right to Recall MP draft is give in section-40.2 of http://rahulmehta.com/301.pdf OR http://scribd.com/doc/62297073/301
# Officer
Procedure / instruction
1 —– (1.1) The word citizen would mean a registered voter.
(1.2) The word “may” does not imply any moral-legal binding. It clearly means “may” or “need not”.
2 District Collector (DC)
PM orders DC, that if a citizen of India comes to DC and wishes to be candidate in coming MLA election, then DC shall accept a fee equal to deposit of MLA election and register that person as a candidate-in-waiting for MLA election. DC will issue a serial number and post his name on the website of PM.
3 Talati , Patwari (or his clerks)
(3.1) PM orders Patwari (or Talati or Village officer) that if a citizen comes in person to Patwari’s office, pays Rs 3 fee , and approves at most five persons for MP position, the Patwari would enter his approvals in the computer and would give receipt showing his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
(3.2) If Patwari does not have PC etc, then DC shall put this operation in office of Tahsildaar till the Talati gets PC etc to put this system.
(3.3) DC may create a system which gives SMS feedback to the citizen.
(3.4) PM’s secretary will provide the necessary software to Patwari and DC will provide the necessary hardware to Patwari.
4 Talati, Patwari
The Talati will put the approvals of the voters on website of PM with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5 Talati, Patwari
If a the voter comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6 MLA
If an alternate candidate gets approval of over 50% of ALL voters in that constituency and it is also 1% higher that approvals obtained by existing sitting MLA, then the MLA may or need not resign in 7 days.
7 Speaker of Assembly
If an alternate MLA in any MLA constituency gets approvals of over 50% of ALL voters and is 1% more than approvals obtained by existing MLA, and that MLA refuses to resign in 7 days, then the Speaker may or need not call a motion to expel that MLA in the Assembly. The decision of the Speaker will be final.
8 MLAs
The MLAs may or need not approve the motion to expel that MLA
9 Election Commission
If MLA resigns, EC will conduct new election as per the norms.
40.6 State Govt Gazette Notification draft for Right to Recall Corporator
# Officer
Procedure / instruction
1 —– The word citizen would mean a registered voter
2 Tahsildaar
(Mamlatdaar) Tahsildaar will accept a fee equal to deposit of Corporator and let a person register as alternate candidate for Corporator. The person must eligible to become Corporator on the date of filing his nomination.
3 Talati , Patwari (or his clerks)
If a citizen comes in person to Talati’s office, pays Rs 3 fee , and approves at most five persons for Corporator position, the Talati would enter his approvals in the computer and would him a receipt with his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
4 Talati, Patwari
The Talati will put the approvals of the voters on website of CM with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5 Talati, Patwari
If a the voter comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6 Corporator
If an alternate candidate gets approval of over 50% of ALL voters in that constituency and it is also 1% higher that approvals obtained by existing sitting Corporator, then the Corporator may or need not resign in 7 days.
7 Corporators
If an alternate Corporator in any Corporator constituency gets approvals of over 50% of ALL voters and is 1% more than approvals obtained by existing Corporator, and that Corporator refuses to resign in 7 days, then the Corporators of that city may or may not pass a resolution to expel him. The decision of Corporators will be final.
8 SEC (State Election Commission)
If Corporators resigns, State Election Commission will conduct new election as per the norms.
40.7 State Govt Gazette Notification draft for Right to Recall Gram Sarpanch
# Officer
Procedure / instruction
1 —–
The word citizen would mean a registered voter
2 Tahsildaar (Mamlatdaar)
Tahsildaar will accept a fee equal to deposit of Gram Sarpanch and let a person register as alternate candidate for Gram Sarpanch.
3 Talati , Patwari (or his clerks)
If a citizen comes in person to Talati’s office, pays Rs 3 fee , and approves at most five persons for Sarpanch position, the Talati would enter his approvals in the computer and would him a receipt with his voter-id#, date/time and the persons he approved.
4 Talati, Patwari
The Talati will put the approvals of the voters on website of PM with citizen’s voter-ID number and names of the persons he approved.
5 Talati, Patwari
If a the voter comes to cancel his Approvals, the Talati will cancel one of more of his approvals without any fee.
6 Sarpanch
If an alternate candidate gets approval of over 50% of ALL voters in that constituency and it is also 1% higher that approvals obtained by existing sitting Sarpanch, then the Sarpanch may or need not resign in 7 days.
7 State Election Commission
If Sarpanch resigns, SEC will conduct new election as per the norms.
40.8 Direct elections of PM, CM, Mayor, Sarpanch
One common problem you will see in India is that a voter will say “Independent candidate Mr. X is good, but I want Mr. A to be CM and so I will vote for Party of Mr. A”. E.g. in Gujarat, many hated local BJP MLA candidate but they voted for BJP as they wanted Modi to be CM. And in Madhya Pradesh, many voters did not like the local BJP MLA candidate yet voted for BJP as they wanted Shivraj Chauhan to become CM. This becomes a hurdle in the way of citizens to promote better candidates in MLA election, because they are tied with “who should become CM”. So if election of CM and MLA is separated i.e. separate elections decide CM and separate election decide MLA, then voters will have more choice and will be able vote for a candidate they like for MLA election, without fearing that it can worsen the choice of MLA. So citizens should directly elect CM and directly elect PM. Will this make PM, CM absolute? No. Using Right to Recall PM and Right to Recall CM, we citizens can ensure that he will behave properly. And as of now, only MLA and MP can expel CM, PM and all they do is threaten CM, PM and collect bribes. So procedure that MLA< MP can expel CM, PM does not help citizens at all – it only enriches MLAs, MPs.
My proposal is – using TCP, we citizens should enact an Gazette Notification by which we citizens can directly elect PM, CM. And for that matter, the proposed procedures Right to Recall PM, CM have means by which citizens can put CM, PM of their choice.
40.9 Banning EVMs and using paper ballots with some changes
Please see a video demonstration that shows that rigging EVMs in untraceable way is easier that paper ballots at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlCOj1dElDY . In addition, I have written a way on how lakhs of EVMs can be rigged inside factory at http://rahulmehta.com/evm1.pdf
Can EVMs be rigged? Yes, and worse – unlike paper ballots, 10000s of EVMs can be rigged with just few people inside the factory. And some ways of rigging ensure that rigging will never become visible to citizens at large. In case of paper ballots, one can rig hardly 0.1% of total votes and that too would need 1000s of criminals. With EVMs, one with 10-15 people at top and by playing a small trick in the Collectors’ offices, one can steal as many as 10% to 20% of the total polled votes. There is another method, which needs about 100 persons in the factory and using them one can steal about 10% of all polled votes across Constituencies. This is the main reason why Germany banned EVMs and Japan, Ireland scrapped EVM projects. And many states in US also banned EVMs.
In case of paper ballots, people complain of so called booth capture. Well, EVM doesn’t stop booth capture either. That is strictly a police problems. EVM only creates 20 second delay between two successive votes and nothing else. This 20 second delay can be achieved with paper ballot as well by having a device that puts a stamp with a 15 digit serial number on the backside of the ballot paper, and device will put only one stamp every 20 seconds. This will ensure a delay of 20 seconds between two votes. Now ballot paper is as safe as EVM and the problem of industrial scale rigging doesn’t come at all. In addition, at all sensitive booth, EC can put a Rs 1000 to Rs 2000 camera which can take pictures every 30 seconds and send the pictures to control station via mobile phone link. All in all, booth capturing happens because judges/policemen have been encouraging criminals, who become so strong and bold that they hack booths. Solution is to enact procedures by which citizens can expel/replace District Police Chiefs and judges so that criminals don’t go so strong. Once criminals weaken the problem of booth capturing reduce.
Also, if election is deposit is raised (see one of the next topics), then number of spurious candidates will reduce. So number of candidates will become 5-10, and the will become of the size of no bigger than two post cards. In such cases, counting will be over in one day.
Once we have recallable District Police Chiefs and recallable judges, the crime problem will reduce and it would become possible to conduct elections with just 1 policemen equipped with camera per booth, and a mobile petrol of 10 policemen in an area covering 10 booths. So to conduct polls in 800,000 booths, about 16,00,000 policemen will be enough. We have 25,00,000 policemen in India (CRPF and all police forces included, Army soldiers and BSF excluded). And election or no election, we need to recruit 50,00,000 more policemen in India. So it is possible to conduct polling in entire country in just one day, and have counting 3 days after polling day.
So all in all, my proposals at RRP on EVM and poll conducting issues are
1. Ban EVMs using TCP. Legalize the use paper ballots only.
2. Enact Right to Recall over Police Chief, judges using TCP
3. Recruit 30,00,000 policemen all over India
4. Equip all policemen with camera
5. Provide camera in all sensitive booths
6. Using TCP, raise the election deposits
7. Using TCP, raise number of citizens who need to propose the candidate
40.10 Conducting polling on one day
In 1951, the entire election was conducted on one day. IIRC, elections were held on one day only till around 1984. It was only after 1984, then ECI had to move the polls across days. The polling can be done on one day with following reforms
1. Make election deposit equal to two per capita annual GDPs : This will ensure that number of candidates are below 10-12 and elections become manageable.
2. Improve law-order : lesser the criminals, less the police staff needed
3. Give camera to policemen in the booth.
4. Using stamping device that puts stamp once every 20 seconds only, so that booth capturers cannot cast 100s of votes within minutes
Once the problem of booth capturing reduces, it would become possible to conduct polling on one day only.
40.11 Simplifying form filling and contesting election
Lesser the time and headache form filling takes, more the honest people will join politics. If form filling etc takes hours and hours, then chances that honest person will quit because of income he is losing will only increase.
As of now, form filling has become a mess. Every election, we see good candidates getting rejected because of petty mistakes. Following are my proposals to reduce technical headaches in filling forms
1. A citizen can declare himself as candidate for a seat any day, not necessarily when election is announced. He can announce himself as candidate of at most 2 Loksabha Constituencies.
2. He shall pay the deposit on the day he announces himself as candidate.
3. He need to be citizen of India and show any proof of being citizen of India to the Collector. His name may or may not be in the voter list.
4. No one will need to second his name at the time of form filling
5. Any citizen can walk to Patwari’s (Talati’s) office and second a candidate for his Constituency for a fee of Rs 3/- fee. A citizen can cancel his seconding any day without fee. A citizen can second at most 3 candidates. He can second any candidate again for Rs 3/- fee.
6. The Collector will accept/reject his application in 7 days
7. The Collector will examine the application after 1000 citizen-voters have seconded his name and the count remains above 1000 for 14 days in a row.
8. If application is rejected, he can file his application again. The list of citizens who have seconded him will remain intact.
9. The last date of filling form will be 30 days before election starts.
10. He will need to disclose his income/wealth statements (as today)
11. Political parties will not get tax benefits. Donors to political parties will not get tax benefits
12. Individuals may donate to political parties, but companies will not be allowed to donate to political parties
13. The campaign expenses cannot be deducted as business expense
14. The candidates will need to give list of expenses they made only after the poll ends and before 30 days after the poll ends. They will not need to file the expenses during the polls.
The raising number of citizens who need to second a candidate to 1000 will reduce the number of spurious candidates. So my proposal wrt election form filling is to get a law-draft containing above 10-12 points enacted using TCP.
40.12 Raising election deposits
Say per capita GDP of India is Rs X. Then Loksabha election deposits I propose is :
1. Minimum deposit will be will be whatever EC decides, say Rs M. As on may-2009, it was Rs 10000
2. if average annual gross income, before exemptions, of the candidate in past three income returns is Rs I or his wealth is Rs W, then the deposit will be higher of (income/5 and wealth/50). W will include circle rate of his plots and constructions.
3. The highest deposit will be 5X i.e. 5 times per capita GDP
4. If the person has lied while disclosing income or wealth, the Jurors can impose a fine of 50 times the difference
5. If the person has agreed to pay deposit of 5X, i.e.5 times per capita GDP, he will not be accused of filing lesser deposit
6. The per capita GDP will be as disclosed by RBI to Election Commission. EC can round it to the nearest thousand rupees. EC’s decision will be final.
So consider may-2009 election. The per capita income was about Rs 45,000. Then if person’s annual income and wealth is below Rs 50000 a year and wealth is below Rs 500,000, then deposit will be Rs 10000. But say his income is say Rs 400,000 per year and wealth is Rs 50,00,000 then deposit will be max(Rs 400,000/5 , Rs 50,00,000/50) = max(80000, 100000) = Rs 100,000. And highest deposit payable will be Rs 225,000
So my proposal is to get above election deposit related law-draft passed using TCP.
40.13 Increasing number of citizen-voters who second a candidate
As of now, in LS election, one needs 10 citizen-voters to second a candidate’s name.
Thus number should be increased to 2000, but the procedure to second the candidate must be changed. Instead of candidate collecting signatures on a form, the citizen who wants to second should be asked to visit Patwari’s office, and Patwari should enter his name in the PC along with his picture in the web-cam camera attached to the Patwari’s PC. The seconding happen any day. And the citizen can cancel his seconding any day. If a candidate’s count exceeds 2000 and stays above 2000 for 30 days in a row, he will be qualified for LS elections for next 6 years. If he fails to meet this requirement, his deposit will be forfeited.
40.14 Restricting number of candidates
Using TCP, I propose to enact following law-draft : If there are more than 8 candidates, then there will a pre-election, 30 days before main election, where the 4 parties (or candidate, if he was independent) which got highest votes in the previous election need not contest and only the rest will be on the pre-election ballot paper. This pre-election ballot paper will have single vote. The 4 candidates which get highest votes in this pre-election will qualify for main election. The deposit for pre-election will be same as deposit for election. And the 4 persons who won pre-election will not need to pay deposit for the main election
How pre-election will reduce number of spurious candidates
Many spurious candidates contest election to cut votes of one or more serious candidates. The pre-election reduces their ability to cut the votes of the serious candidates.
40.15 Eliminate Optional Withdrawal of candidates
A candidate who is filling form can tag his election filing with zero or more candidates. If he has tagged, then he can contest only if all the candidates in the list got disqualified. If anyone is qualified, then his form will be considered withdrawn and deposit is refunded. But he will not have power to to withdraw. This will reduce spurious form filling.
40.16 Instant Run-Off Voting
(for detailed explanation, please see IRV on wikipedia)
The election procedure we use is “single vote, first past the pole” i.e. one voter can cast only one vote and the candidate with highest vote wins. This procedure has a flaw which has been known since 1200 AD – voters can not vote for the candidate they like most ; they are compelled by circumstances and procedure to vote for the candidate who can defeat the worst of the winnable candidates. This is not to say that voters prefer winnable over unwinnable, or winnability impresses anyone at all.
Let me explain with one example. Say in one election, BJP and Congress are contesting with 4 more independents, A to D. Say a citizen likes Mr. A. But he fears that if Congress wins, he will lose badly. In such case, ensuring that Congress loses is his first priority. And so he will end up voting for BJP, even if he thinks that Mr. A is better than BJP candidates. Likewise, someone may like Mr. A, but he believes that if BJP wins, he will be worse off. And so he has not much of a choice but to vote for Congress. So we see that voters cannot vote for the candidate he likes most – but he has to vote for candidate who can defeat the winnable candidate he hates most, even if he hates that candidate.
The problem has been known for past 800 years. And the solution is also 800 years old – it is known as Instant Recall Voting. I will explain by giving complete description of IRV
1. Say 8 candidates namely PersonA, PersonB, …, PersonH are contesting
2. Then ballot paper design can be as follows
|
candidate number
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
|
Party
|
Cong
|
BJP
|
CPM
|
BSP
|
Ind
|
Ind.
|
Ind
|
Ind
|
|
candidate name
|
PersonA
|
PersonB
|
PersonC
|
PersonD
|
PersonE
|
PersonF
|
PersonG
|
PersonH
|
|
Symbol
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
the most honest
|
Most
Honest
|
Most
Honest
|
Most
Honest
|
Most
Honest
|
Most
Honest
|
Most
Honest
|
Most
Honest
|
Most
Honest
|
|
2nd most honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
|
3rd most honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
|
4th most honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
First Proposed ballot paper design for Instant Recall Voting aka Preferential Voting
3. The details of the ballot paper design are as follows
a. the ballot paper has 8 rows
b. first row shows candidate number, second row has part name, third row has candidate name, forth row has symbol;
c. the fifth row is for the candidate whom the voter thinks is most honest
d. the sixth to eight rows are for the candidates whom the voter thinks is second most honest, third most honest to forth most honest candidates
e. there are (nCandidates + 2) columns – the first and last columns have row headings and one column for each candidate
f. the height of ballot paper will be 14 inches – 0.5 inch border at top 0.5 inches for 1st row having candidate number, 1 inch for second row having party name, 2 inches for 3rd row having candidate name, 1.5 inch for symbol row, and 1.5 inch for each preference and 0.5 inch border at bottom = (0.5 + 0.5 + 1 + 2 + 1.5 + 1.5*4 + 0.5) = 12 inches
g. the width of the ballot paper will be : 0.5 left border, 2 inch for first row and 1.5 inch for each candidate and 0.5 inch for right candidate. So if there are 8 candidates, the ballot paper will be (0.5 + 2 + 1.5*8 + 0.5) = 15 inches wide. If there are 5 candidates, the ballot paper will be (0.5 + 2 + 1.5*5 + 0.5) = 10.5 inches wide.
h. the borders will be 0.2 inch thick so that the stamp will not spill over two cells
The vertical design is as follows
|
#
|
Party
|
Name
|
Symbol
|
The
Most
Honest
|
2nd
Most
Honest
|
3rd
Most
Honest
|
4th
Most
Honest
|
|
1
|
Cong
|
PersonA
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
|
2
|
BJA
|
PersonB
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
|
3
|
CPX
|
PersonC
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
|
4
|
Ind
|
PersonD
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
|
5
|
Ind
|
PersonE
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
|
6
|
Ind
|
PersonF
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
|
7
|
Ind
|
PersonG
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
|
8
|
Ind
|
PersonH
|
|
Most
Honest
|
Second
Most
Honest
|
Third
Most
Honest
|
Forth
Most
Honest
|
4. In the IRV I am proposing, if there are more than 8 candidates, then there will a pre-election, 30 days before main election, where the four parties/candidates which got highest votes in the previous election need not contest and only the rest will be on the ballot paper. This pre-election ballot paper will have single vote. The 4 candidates which get highest votes in this pre-election will qualify for main election
5. In the main election, the voter will put 4 stamps, one in each row and in any columns of his choices. Thus he will give 4 preferences amongst 8 candidates.
6. The ballot box will have wider slit so that ballot paper has to be fold only once along the height.
Does any country use IRV?
Yes. Ireland has been using IRV to elect its President for past over 70 years. The number of votes are 30 lakhs, twice our Parliamentary constituency. While Ireland is small country, but then we have more counting staff as well. In addition to Ireland, Australia and many countries have been using IRV for decades.
Counting and Results in IRV
In IRV as above, there will 7 rounds of counting.
In the first round, there will be 8 piles based on first preference.
In second round, the candidate which got lowest vote is deemed defeated. And any candidate which got less than 1% of polled votes will be also deemed defeated. So there will be at most seven candidates. And his votes are re-distributed based on second preference on that ballot paper.
In third round, the candidate which got lowest vote is deemed defeated. So there are now at most six candidates. And his votes are re-distributed based on second preference or third preference of the ballot paper.
And so till there are only two piles. And the person who has highest votes is declared winner
At any point, if one person get more than 50% votes, then winner is decided. After that counting will still go on for 7 rounds, but result will not be effected.
In the last round, the person who gets highest votes will be declares as winner.
Administrative details of counting
Say there are 15,00,000 and 1500 booths. So there are 1500 ballot boxes.
Then Collector will have about 7 rooms, each with about 200-250 booths, each room will have 10-15 tables. So there will be 20 sub-rounds of counting in each of the 7 rounds of counting.
In each sub round, each table will get one ballot box. It will make 8 piles. After counting, it will add the ballots to the piles.
Actual count in most cases
If number of voters are say 15,00,000 then most voters on an average will give only 2-4 preferences, say 3 preferences on an average. In such a case, one ballot will change pile at most twice. So actual ballot counting is not 7 times 15,00,000 but no more twice of 15,00,000.
Advantages of IRV
IRV is immune to clone effect and so adversaries will not waste time in sponsoring clones. Also, IRV enables voter to vote for a good but seemingly unwinnable candidate as first preference and then give vote to winnable candidate as 4th preference. Thus, voter feels protected and the seemingly unwinnable candidates get highlighted. And the seemingly unwinnable candidate may actually win !! This is an important plus point of IRV that new candidates’ dependence on media-owners reduces and media-owners’ power in effecting the outcome of election decreases. So IRV makes elections less dependent on media-owners.
40.17 Election and Proportionate Representation in Rajyasabha
The Rajyasabha MPs should be elected by citizens, and not via MLAs. The election via MLAs results into auctioning of seats literally. This is nothing new – even in US when Senators were elected by MLAs, the sell outs were common and which is why citizens forced Senators to enact a law-draft that would enable citizens to elect Senators and not MLAs.
And we should elect Rajyasabha MPs using proportionate voting in the state. Each party or group of independents can put their ordered list. A citizen will cast one vote with 5 preferences (IRV) towards any of the 5 lists and number of candidates that will get elected will depend on the number of votes a list gets. This will create proportionate representation in the Rajyasabha.
40.18 Inner Party Democracy
I propose following law-draft for inner party democracy
1. A person who wants to be member of a political party will need to and can appear at Patwari’s office, pay Rs 3 fee and submit the serial number of the Party he wishes to be member of. EC will allow a person to be member of any number of Parties.
2. Talati will post the names on EC’s website.
3. The Party President will submit a list to EC , which will contain the list of members he has approved. The EC will also put that list on EC’s website.
4. The Party President can cancel the membership in next 3 months without giving any reason
5. The Party’s Constitution may divide members into 5 or less categories – A, B, C, D and E.
6. If the Party’s Constitution says that MLA candidate must be elected by members of certain category , then District Collector will appoint a Tahsildaar, who will conduct an election amongst the Party members of specified category and EC will allocate the ticket only to that candidate
As of now, the draft of the above proposed law-draft is not ready. And given the level of corruption, in EC, Collector, Tahsildaar and judges, no political party will accept such clause and very few citizens will agree to force this laws on political parties. Once RTR laws have reduced corruption EC, Collector, Tahsildaar and judges, citizens may agree to force inner part elections on political parties.
40.19 Reducing election expenses
When RTR comes, it will enable citizens to expel candidates. So no candidate will plan or even dream of collecting crores of bribes. So desire to spend tons of money in campaign will decrease.
40.20 What can YOU do to bring electoral reforms in India
Please read chap-13 of this book http://rahulmehta.com/301.htm . It has several steps where-in you can spend 6 hours a week and help to bring TCP draft in Gazette in India. The steps involve distributing pamphlets, informing citizens on motives of leaders such Congress MPs, BJP MPs, The Anna etc who oppose TCP draft, by giving newspaper ads, contesting elections. Once TCP gets printed in Gazette, using TCP, it will become easy for activists to get citizens’ opinion law-drafts mentioned in this chapter on electoral reforms, such as Right to Recall MLA, RTR MP, RTR CEC, Inner Party Democracy, Preferential Voting System, Increasing Deposit Amount etc etc This will bring electoral reforms in India at rapid rate.