What are the challenges to free &
fair election in India ?
Answers
The basic challenges for organizing free and fair elections can be summed up by three initiatives: (1) one person, one vote; (2) a vote cast is a vote counted; (3) voters must be protected from unlawful influences upon their decisions. The set of rules that governs the conduction of elections and referendums and how their results are determined is called an electoral system.
The first goal is to ensure that every person with the right to vote (observing the legal requirements about citizenship, age, criminal convictions etc.) will be allowed to vote, and at the same time will cast only one vote. There are many ways to accomplish this, such as voter registration and some form of control of voter turnout, like collecting one’s signature when casting a ballot. The process of prior registration usually results in some form of voters database, which must be constantly updated with new citizens reaching the voting age, their currently assigned polling station, cancellation of entries for the deceased and so on. The database should be checked periodically to prevent duplication of records, and could be used to print a list of eligible voters for each polling station.
I can tell from personal experience that going that route solves a lot of problems but takes a lot of work. In my country, Brazil, voting is compulsory, and every citizen above the age of eighteen must register to vote. There are registration offices in perhaps a quarter of municipalities in the country, opened every business day throughout the year, and we strive to visit the remaining three quarters at least once a week. There are over four hundred thousand polling stations on election day.
The second initiative listed refers to the goal of properly counting all valid ballots cast during the election. Fall within this category all measures that must be taken to prevent frauds in the voting process, such as ballot stuffing, interfering with voting machines, destruction of valid ballots, frauds in the tabulation of results and others. Concerns about transparency and oversight must also be considered.
The third goal is by far the most difficult to accomplish, involving a great deal of subjectivity. In theory, the political campaigns must be guided by rules defining its duration, types of ads allowed, limits of expenditure, origin of the resources and so on. The system adopted must include some way to resolve disputes arising from those issues.
Hope this helps.
it is very difficult to hold elections throughout the country on the same date and time and hence Election Commission has to allot different dates to different locations and localities and States .......
in this process sometimes EVM machines are hacked....
and if not then the party which lose the elections, alleges fraud.....
moreover it is very costly because Election Commission has to distribute equal many to many of the candidates and some of these candidates misuse the money
sometimes people are bribed for votes