Wednesday, February 25, 2009

49(O) No Vote moves

As today’s TOI editorial report that the “The Supreme Court has now decided that the right to cast a negative vote should be taken up by a five-judge constitution bench. While delivering a judgment on a PIL, a two-judge bench felt the matter was important enough to be heard by a constitution bench. This is welcome

The Election Commission has already given its support to the demand for a negative vote. It has asked for an amendment to existing laws to enable a voter to "reject all the candidates, if he chooses to do", while maintaining secrecy of the ballot. This would mean putting a `None of the above' option in electronic voting machines, which shouldn't be too difficult. Unsurprisingly, most political parties are against this move. But if the right to cast negative votes can shake up political parties and make them nominate better candidates, it would have served its purpose”. 

But it may be sad that the Delhi based Liberty Institute reject this move. In fact it feels this move will “plague our democratic system”. 

In fact in this case there is a NGO in Tamil Nadu whose single objective is “Oh Podu” (“cast the vote”).

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