Suggestions on election reforms submitted to the Ministry of Law and Justice, Legislative Department, Government of India on February 4th 2011.

1. An agenda for serious election reform efforts in India
By Dr Anupam Saraphi
Overview
This paper outlines the principles for election reforms and explores reform ideas and
questions in the context of these principles. It addresses some of the system reforms
required to make elections in India serve the purpose of allowing every member of the
Electoral Collegeii
to deposit its vote, as a proxy to participation in Governance, to a
candidate of choice and be assured that the system is accountable.
The paper is a contribution to the current public consultation process for Election
Reforms undertaken by the Law Ministry of Indiaiii
. It is meant to serve as a first step
to a serious discussion and reform effort and is not a complete or final word on the
actual reform.
The purpose of election reforms
The Law Ministry of India has announced a public consultationiv
based process for
Election Reforms and its committee for Election Reformsv
has released a background
papervi
, which deals with a number of issues concerning Criminalization Of Politics,
Financing Of Elections, Conduct And Better Management Of Elections, Regulating
Political Parties, Auditing Of Finances Of Political Parties, Adjudication Of Election
Disputes and Review Of Anti-Defection Law. However, it appears that the purpose of
the reform agenda is to address symptoms indicated by some of the political
controversies around the election process and not the election system itself.
If the purpose of elections is to ensure every member of each Electoral College can
deposit (or withdraw) its vote, as a proxy to participation in governance, to a
candidate of its choice and be assured that the system faithfully accounts for it, the
purpose of an agenda for serious election reform should be to examine ways to
address the lacunae in accomplishing this objective.
Addressing a few political controversies alone cannot ensure every member of each
Electoral College can deposit its vote to a candidate of her choice with fidelity. Nor
can it ensure that the vote can work as a proxy to participation in governance.
Reforming the election system to meet the purpose of having the election system
should be the only valid reason for pursuing a serious election reform agenda.
Principles for a reform agenda
No reform should be ad hoc. It should not just address the symptoms of the day.
Reform should be based on enduring principles that can only be rooted in the purpose
of elections. Enduring principles for the reform should therefore be:
1. Every stakeholder community and geography must find participation by
inclusion, not exclusion of the other.
This principle would require that the election system allow every stakeholder
community an equal opportunity of representation in a geographical
constituency by including their participation, not excluding the participation of
other stakeholders. It would also require that every geographical region have
an equal opportunity for representation by including its participation, not
excluding the participation of a region.
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2. 2. Ensure the vote will be a better proxy to governance.
This principle would require that the voter is able recognize and take action on
the deviations in the development agenda or ideals promised to the voter. It
would also require that the vote is not converted into a proxy for the formation
of a government but rather for governance.
3. Ensure the ability of every voter to count and be counted.
This principle would require that every voter have ample opportunity to vote.
It also requires that every vote cast by the voter would continue to matter.
4. Ensure the ability to vote to candidate of choice.
This principle would need to provide for flexibility to voters to select, choose
(and vote for) candidates of their choice.
5. Provide a means to account for every vote and ensure the fidelity of each vote.
This principle would require that it is possible to ensure each vote to a
candidate is genuine. It would need to ensure that each voter’s vote actually
reached the account of the candidate to which it was deposited. It would need
to provide a means to audit and certify the fidelity of the polling process.
The election system
The election system includes the various elements such as the offices for election, an
electoral college, candidates for election, procedures for election, the rules for
capturing the vote and counting it, declaration of results, and certifying the fidelity of
the elections.
The Constitution of India Part I and XV as well as The Representation of The People
Act, 1950 define some of the parts of these elements in Indian elections. The
symptoms in the form of political controversies around the election processes
highlighted (as also those missed) by the Law Ministries Background Paper bring out
the failure of the legal system to address the elections holistically and ensure the
purpose of elections is met.
Offices for electionvii
If the vote is to act as a proxy to governance it must have continuity to represent a
feedback of performance of the office for election. In a representational democracy
based on offices for election corresponding to geographic constituencies, the vote is a
proxy to the governance and development of the constituency. If the purpose of
geographic representation is to ensure the balanced development, the geographies
administrative boundaries must coincide with constituencies and constituencies must
not morph with time.
If there is no correspondence between administrative boundaries and constituencies,
or that the composition of a constituency changes from one election to another, the
ability for the vote to act as a proxy is destroyed. Both scenarios make development
data corresponding to constituency very difficult to monitor and at worst impossible
to compile. This destroys the vote as a proxy to governance.
By a restructuring of constituencies periodicallyviii,ix
this is exactly what happens. This
has created lack of correspondence or one-to-one mapping between the office of
election and the administrative units used by the administrations at the council, state
or national level. Neither is the data of development kept at the constituency level, nor
is action or planning done at the office of election or constituency level.
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3. It is no wonder that we experience a complete disconnect between the election and
governance – for which the vote was a proxy. It is hardly a surprise that 6 decades of
governance with such disconnect between the offices for election have resulted in
serious imbalance in governance, development and environmental sanity that continue
to plague the country at the national, state or local levels.
In offices for election that are based on representation of stakeholders rather than
geographies it is important to represent every stakeholder to issues, sectors or
domains. The “upper houses” or the Rajya Sabha in the centre and Legislative
Council in the State, constitute such bodies of representatives that are not
geographical, currently do not allow for representation of all stakeholders. The
electorate of these offices is not the different stakeholders but rather representatives of
geographical constituencies. This simply allows for more representation to the
majority rather than allowing different perspectives and all stakeholders to be
represented. To balance representation of the people it is, therefore, these bodies and
not the geographical constituencies that should represent stakeholders communitiesx,xi
.
The first candidate for a serious reform agenda would be to examine how the vote can
remain a proxy for governance. How can the feedback from voters about the
governance of their constituencies and stakeholder perspectives not be destroyed by
mixing geographical and stakeholder representation unfairly, administrative mapping,
and delimitation exercises? How can the offices for election serve as the unit of
governance and development?
Electoral College
The election law does not consider the citizens eligible to vote as one single Electoral
College. Instead of defining criteria to decide which offices and which constituencies
a voter may vote in, it defines voters for each Election Office or Constituencyxii,xiii,xiv
.
As a result separate rolls are created and maintained at the local, state and national
level for the same Electoral College responsible for electing people to different
Election Offices.
There is no provision to ensure that each member of the Electoral College will be
automatically and fairly included onto the Electoral Rollsxv,xvi
. In the event that a
person is kept out, there is little recourse to ensure remedyxvii
. In fact the law explicitly
disallows appeal and court interference. This seriously compromises the principle to
ensure the ability of every voter to count and be counted.
One of the major problems lies in the fact that the generation of the electoral roll
ignores the existence of the citizen data in the National Census, a door-to-door survey
of the entire population of the country. Instead of issuing a Election Card to each
member on the Census indicating the year from which they may cast votes, the
machinery creates lists based on periodic drives for inclusion of names.
Electoral Rolls are not searchable to find if a persons name exists and even less so to
find duplicate names. Nor is there any exercise to merge and consolidate the different
lists into a single common list. The Electoral Rolls do not map onto street maps –
despite the fact that such are easily possible in today’s information age.
As can be expected from these procedures it is very difficult to ensure genuine voters
or single registrations.
While the Electoral Rolls are accessible freely to the Candidatesxviii
they are not to the
members of the Electoral College. Strangely the privacy of the voter is of no concern
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4. to the law. This is like making the names and addresses of a bank – or its branch –
available to business interests. Easy access of such a list to Candidates is one of the
biggest factors increasing election crime and the cost of elections.
In six decades why has the law not provided for making a consolidated demographic
and development profile of the constituency be accessible – or even mandatory –
instead of the detailed names and addresses of voters in a constituency?
If voters are the stakeholders for whose participation the elections are held, why do
the various sections of the Representation of the Peoples Act treat them with such
unimportance? In fact the regional consultations on Election Reforms almost
completely ignores the voter by holding consultation in only 6 metros across India at a
notice of a few daysxix
.
Candidates
A candidate is the basis for creating representation. In the Indian system you do not
elect candidates to represent the country, but you elect them to represent your
constituency. Besides, candidates can represent a constituency where they are not
domiciled. How can there be geographical representation and what meaning to
constituencies have if the candidate is not domiciled in the constituency?
The widespread dismay at the quality of candidates participating in various elections
reflects a failure of the laws to attract candidates that inspire trust, understand local
environmental and developmental problems or have visions beyond themselves.
Why has the publishing of such affidavits and criminal records not made the Offices
of Election less criminal or less wealthy? Would there be need for publishing criminal
records or affidavits declaring wealth if the candidates were from the constituency and
lived there?
The procedures for nomination of candidatesxx
fails to inspire anyone form the
Electoral College to seek candidacy save those with moneyxxi
or muscle. In an
information age where technology is able to capture votes and count them, is there a
reason to restrict the number of candidates or even require a formal nomination?
Currently there is no effort to allow the voter to even nominate a candidatexxii
of
choice. The nomination proceduresxxiii,xxiv,xxv,xxvi,xxvii,xxviii
act as a filter rather than an
enabler of choice to the voters to nominate candidates. This violates the principle to
offer candidates of choice to the voters. What if anyone could simply nominate a
candidate?
Must Political Parties usurp the geographical or stakeholder representation by
converting the candidate into a numbers game to form a government (and render the
candidate, geographical or stakeholder community representation irrelevant for
representation of the people, governance or development)? Can it not be left to the
parties to inspire national policies that local (independent) candidates may support?
Representing a constituency is a life-long job requiring selflessness and devotion to
the people of the constituency. It is important to create mechanisms to attract those
who seek to serve the community and not themselves or business and political
lobbies. What can be done to address the conflict of interest of parties or its members
who have business affiliations or funds? Is it worth registering candidates – rather
than political partiesxxix
- and providing special funding for their participation in
peoples environmental and development activities?
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5. What if the Election Commission were to create a website for each constituencyxxx
?
What if that site can provide a webpage for each registered candidate to host an
agenda for the constituency and the project details of the peoples environmental and
development activities she is participating in? What if the ECI would print and mail
the resume and information on the peoples projects that each candidate from the
constituency is participating in to the voters in that constituency? Will this not bring
down the cost of elections to a very small fraction of the existing cost?
Procedures for election
The law requires the Election Commission of India (ECI) to supervise, direct and
control the electionsxxxi
. It is not mandated to conduct the elections. Consequently, it
out-sourcesxxxii
the election to the State (or in-turn to the local government). Those
who win the elections control the machinery conducting the next electionsxxxiii
.
Would it be more appropriate to create a Public Institution of the ECI to conduct the
elections? Or perhaps outsourcing the elections to NGO’s or even businesses whose
exclusive activity is the management of events?
The task of supervision too is outsourced to the various governments for whose
offices the election is being held. There is no member of the ECIxxxiv
who directly
supervises each constituency. The parties that conduct the election also certify the
procedure and freeness or fairness of the election.
What if each constituency could seek out local people who volunteer the conducting
of elections under supervision and direction of the Election Commission?
The procedures for election need to be simple and a way of enforcing the principles
outlined for reforms. Currently the procedures are merely administrative mechanisms
to conduct the elections.
The rules for capturing the vote and counting it
Currently there is no means to capture or record the legitimacy of a votexxxv
. Did
legitimate voters cast the votesxxxvi
? Is the vote assigned to a candidate legitimate –
was it meant for that candidate? This is similar to an anonymous deposit of cash into a
bank account. This would be regarded as unacceptable in an age of “Know your
customer” (KYC) to prevent money laundering, terrorism and anti-national activities.
Further it is not possible to verify if the same person cast more than one vote. While
some may argue that voting ink to prevent this, the absence of a means to capture the
unique vote transaction associated with a unique voter and its audit destroys the
ability to certify legitimate and single votes.
This also means that the voter has no receipt of the valuable vote she has deposited
into a candidates account. There is neither any evidence of having cast the vote to a
candidate of choice nor of the vote having been countedxxxvii
. This means we have to
make a huge leap of faith in the system and believe that the vote somehow went to the
candidate of choice and remained there.
A receipt is a confirmation, a proof of counting. It reinforces the value of the vote. It
gives every voter the feeling relevant.
The opponents of receipts have argued that they open up vote commerce: exchange of
money for votes. Others have argued that voting process without receipts is also open
to proxy by commerce.
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6. In the world of business lobbyists and interest groups often pool votes of people who
would want them to vote on their behalf and often use them to take over companies or
change their directions. The compulsions of the voter and a lobbyist may be diverse,
but the common equation is the value of the vote. A lobbyist or an interest group
looks for controlling return on investment- the voter relinquishing the vote to the
lobbyist for an advanced dividend for giving up the right to participating in the
governance.
The practice of surrendering the vote to an interested group is sustained as long at it
yields a better dividend upfront than the dividend from the better governance later. A
risk averse voter prefers the dividend upfront. A dividend payment upfront (or a
payment in lieu of the vote) often results in the exclusion of future dividends for the
voter group that has given up its right to a future dividend.
A nation elects its government for the dividends its citizens may receive from the
management by the new "board". If the selling of a vote serves to be more beneficial
to the voters than the management by any government, it may well be the lesser evil
to voting without receipts.
However if all the principles of reforms are in place there is little need to resort to
selling a vote or even buying one. With candidates of choice and better ability for the
vote to be a proxy to governance and not government formation, there may be little
need to indulge in vote-commerce.
The law already violates the voter privacy by making voter lists available to
candidates. The receipt offers the privacy of the vote to the voter, not the candidate.
Like the banks receipt on deposit of money where the depositor can choose to share
information of the deposit with the world, keep it secret or destroy it, the voter can
choose to share, keep secret or destroy the receipt.
Will the good system issue a receipt to the voter certifying the vote went to the
candidate of choice? Can the privacy of the receipt be the choice of the voter? Will
blind faith no longer be thrust down the voter in the name of secrecy?
Perhaps the well-designed Voting Receipts will be two-part print-outs from the EVM.
Part I could be dropped into a ballot box by the voter after confirming it documents
the correct vote. Part II could stay with the voter as proof of the transaction.
Perhaps a unique Vote Number printed on both Part I and Part II could identify each
vote. This number could be generated by the EVM through an encryption algorithm
using the Voters ID, the Polling Officers ID and the EVM ID. Each Vote No could
then be associated with a unique Vote. It would then be possible that any Vote
Number would be verifiable as being valid or for the vote it stores by logging in at an
ECI website for example https://eci.gov.in/verifyvote. This verification site could
then report invalid for invalid Vote Numbers and the number of the Candidate for a
valid vote. It should be possible to do this without yielding the identity of the voter.
The voter could also be able to log-in to an ECI site for example
https://eci.gov.in/myvote with the voterid and date-of-birth (that they can reset to
another password) to check details of their vote as they appear on the Part II of the
receipt with them.
It should be possible to use Part I of the receipt to confirm the vote by printing the
Candidate Number and details (name and party) as well as the location where the
voter cast the vote. The Part II of the receipt could be used to provide everything on
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7. Part I (except the location map), and a reminder of how the vote may be verified
anytime.
An algorithm that uses the Candidates Voter ID, the District Election Officer’s Voter
ID could be used to generate a 16 digit unique Candidate Number that can be verified
to be genuine. Each Candidate Number could be used to translate back to Candidate
Name and Political Affiliation.
It should be possible for all EVM’s then upload their data to an encrypted database
that could provide information to anyone through secure access to at the ECI websites
for example https://eci.gov.in/verifyvote and https://eci.gov.in/myvote.
Such a system will enable check if all votes to a candidate came from legitimate
voters without revealing their identity. It would also make it possible to report
duplicate votes and negate them.
The voting process in 2009 deployed 1.025 million EVM’s. Each EVM was shared
with between 1 to 3,840 votes (the maximum capacity of each machine). As the
machine can work at most 5 votes per minute (300 votes per hour), it can register at
most 2,400 votes in the 8-hour polling periodxxxviii
.
Given the voters time preference to vote, procedure of activating the EVM and the
time required by each voter to recognize the button corresponding to their choice,
understand the process and vote, in practice the EVM works at about 1 vote per 1-4
minutes. This means the EVM can cater to at most 15-60 votes per hour or 120 to 480
votes in the 8-hour period. This translates to 123 to 492 million votes.
Given that 417,156,894 voters cast their vote in the 2009 elections this translates to an
average of 407 votes per EVM. This suggests that the deployment of EVM’s is one of
the key reasons for a Voting Divide. A large chunk of the 42% of eligible voters are
not able to cast their vote.
With about 40 million young Indians becoming eligible to vote every year would
mean that 200 million new voters have to vote in the same time. The Voting Divide
will only increase.
There are over 500 million cell phone subscribers in India. Remarkably more than the
people who cast votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha Elections. Cell phones now cost under
1,000 Indian rupees and service providers offer free life-time connectivity with 1
paisa per second plans. This has revolutionized the Indian communications. Both
social and business practices have adapted to this unprecedented and rapidly
expanding access to hand-held compute power.
The cell phones offer the opportunity to become the ubiquitous EVM in the hands of
each voter. With the freedom to vote from anywhere, can each voter can pre-register a
handset and cell number to serve as his or her EVM? Can both Service Providers and
mobile phone manufacturers tap into this opportunity and provide the required
interface to capture votes into a national database? Can API’s to generate Vote
Numbers and Receipts be provided by the ECI on its servers for anyone to design
EVM’s that capture votes and upload to their database during the voting period?
Such Service Providers could be required to generate a mechanism to capture Part I of
the voting receipt in their database and make it accessible to third party Open Audit in
the same way as outlined above. Each Service Provider could be required to guarantee
to its subscriber the Terms of Privacy and Security.
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8. The Reserve Bank of India has recently launched a mobile payment platformxxxix
. The
ECI can similarly invest in a mobile-based voting platform that is inclusive, available
ubiquitously and provides a good transaction trail. This would allow the ECI to play
its role to supervise, direct and control the electionsxl
effectively.
Declaration of results
Currently the names of the winners are announced by the ECI on the day of the results
– weeks later the ECI releases the elected representative data and the votes polled
dataxli,xlii
. There are no audited results, only unaudited ones. There is no single channel
for declaring results, there are many – different pages on ECI’s website, press
releases, interviews and declarations by returning officers.
The declaration of results has to provide adequate reassurance that every voter counts
and has been counted. It has to provide adequate reassurance that every vote is
accounted for and ensure the fidelity of each vote.
If results are declared by the Returning Officer (or an outsourced Agent for the ECI)
there should be a third party audit required before the ECI certifies the result to be
true and correct (or an audited result).
If each constituency website is hosted by the ECI the detailed result of votes polled by
each candidate from the constituency can be declared and made available by the ECI
on this website on the official day of declaration of results. This can become the
single point of declaring results. This will encourage transparency, as it will offer the
voters the single official place to compare the various candidates in the election fray.
Certifying the fidelity and contesting it
Although voting is a blank cheque to trillions of rupees of spending, a license to
control the civil liberty in a country, a framework that pushes thousands of decisions
to every citizen it is perhaps the most un-challengable and un-audit-able process in a
countryxliii,xliv,xlv,xlvi
. There is no way anyone can verify the claims of those who conduct
and control the voting process and certify them to be true and correct.
There is no way that anyone can follow the transactions of voting and certify that a
candidate did indeed get as many votes as counted from legitimate sources. There is
no way anyone can certify that the vote cast by anyone actually ended up for the
candidate for whom it was destined. There is no way anyone can certify that every
voter counted at the polling booth was actually the one who was entitled to vote.
Arguably the process of audit requires a transaction trail. A publicly audit-able
process would require a public access to the trail. In an age of open-source it is
surprising that we opt for closed-audit systems. Would you trust the financial
institution that audits itself?
In a voting process a transaction trail would require each vote be identified with the
voter, location and time. This trail would ensure that every vote could be tracked to
the source. If there is a transaction trail, it becomes impossible to add or remove votes
that do not come from a voter, a location and during a legitimate period.
The important part of a legitimate transaction process is the ability to certify that all
transactions were fair and genuine. In finance it is accepted best practice to have
third-party audits to certify that transactions are according to law and genuine.
An open-audit framework would be an important safeguard for the voting process to
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9. reinforce confidence of the voters and candidates in the outcome. Not only does the
voter need to know she counted, but the candidate also needs to know the votes
received by all candidates were indeed a mandate of the people.
Designing a process that would allow anyone concerned with the voting process to
track one or many transactions, while respecting the privacy of each voter, would be
essential part of increasing trust and thereby participation. Thus while the process
would enable anyone to check the legitimacy of each vote or of all the votes received
by a candidate, it would not reveal the identity of the voter who cast the vote.
As a first step to an Open Audit the Bar codes of Part I Receipts, dropped by voters in
the polling box at the booth, can be read into an encrypted database that can register
the Vote No and the associated Candidate No. This process can be carried out by an
agency independent of the one counting votes stored in the EVM. This will serve as a
double entry accounting process.
A publicly available Poll Audit software program ( for example at
https://eci.gov.in/AuditTheElection) can compare the Candidate No registered against
each Vote Number in the Receipt with the EVM and generate a report of invalid Vote
Numbers, invalid Candidate Numbers, Vote Numbers in the EVM Database but not in
the Receipt Database, Vote Numbers in the Receipt Database but not in the EVM
Database and discrepancies the Candidate Number registered in the two databases for
each Polling centre. In the event there are no discrepancies, it can certify the Votes as
valid.
Anyone could be granted access to the Poll Audit software to ask for reports of
illegitimate Vote Numbers, illegitimate Voter IDs by each Polling Centre or by each
legitimate Polling Officer ID. This would make the fidelity of every counted vote
completely transparent and verifiable.
Those against a transaction trail argue of such trails making the ballot free of secrecy.
Those for the trail argue about the inability to distinguish legitimate votes from
illegitimate ones resulting in a possible compromise of the polling process.
Whatever the merits of secrecy, it certainly fails to enthuse confidence about the
voting process and in voter-based democracy. What is the difference between the acts
of a dictator and a secretly elected ruler? Whatever but a leap of faith can stand
witness to the democratic election of the ruler?
Rabindranath Tagore dreamt of a land where the mind is without fear and the head
held high - will a secret democracy ever lead us into this world where everyone can
walk fearlessly and honorably with the choices they make about the way they may be
ruled?
It is interesting that a secret Sunday confession does not rid the world of sinners.
Would a Sunday of public celebration of virtues possibly make the world a better
place?
They say secrecy is the difference between a marriage and an affair. Hold anything
secret and even a RTI may not be able to get you justice. The hallmark of civilization
is when dissenters can walk fearlessly in a world of pluralism. Are we that far away
from a civilized society that we have to fear a dissenting vote? Isn’t the essence of
democracy the right for the perspectives of every stakeholder community and
geographical constituency to be counted?
The men of character in every civilization rarely hid their true opinions behind a faith-
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10. based, unauditable systems, secret ballot or diplomatic guile. No land of secret
decisions ever yielded a world without fear. Certainly not one where you may hold
your head high. Such a land cannot have free knowledge; there would be a price for
any information, perhaps that of forfeiting democracy itself.
Conclusions
It is evident that the Indian Law relating to the elections falls seriously short serving
the purpose of allowing every member of the Electoral College to deposit her vote, as
a proxy to participation in governance, to a candidate of her choice and be assured of
the systems fidelity at accounting it. Different elements of the election system require
serious reforms in order to ensure that the elections remain relevant in governance.
Not only must the reforms ensure coherence in administrative and representational
units, it must also be based on principles of inclusion not exclusion. Reform must
ensure the vote will be a better proxy to governance. It must ensure the ability of
every voter to count and be counted. It must ensure the ability to vote to candidate of
choice. It must also provide a means to account for every vote and ensure the fidelity
of each vote.
It is hoped that this paper will stimulate much discussion and thought and improve
and add to the reform of elections in India.
Election reform can yield us the world Tagore dreamt about - where the mind is
without fear and the head held high - it can leapfrog the world’s biggest democracy to
being the worlds greatest nation. Let us embark on a journey to build our nation
together. Let us celebrate the diversity of our votes!
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11. i
Anupam Saraph is a governance and systems expert, an accomplished innovator, a systems thinker,
environmentalist and an advisor to top leaders.
ii
While the Constitution in India refers to the voters to the State Councils and the Presidential and
Vice Presidential Candidates by this term and the voters to the other elections simply by describing
the "electoral roll", the phrase “Electoral College” is used here to describe the set of eligible voters
who choose among candidates for a particular office.
iii
http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/ereforms/ereforms.htm
iv
http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/ereforms/minutes.doc
v
http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/ereforms/core_committee.pdf
vi
http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/ereforms/bgp.doc
vii
Part I of the Constitution of India
viii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (11)
ix
The Constitution of India Part XV (329) (a) the validity of any law relating to the delimitation of
constituencies or the allotment of seats to such constituencies, made or purporting to be made under
article 327 or article 328, shall not be called in question in any court; (b) no election to either House
of Parliament or to the House or either House of the Legislature of a State shall be called in
question except by an election petition presented to such authority and in such manner as may be
provided for by or under any law made by the appropriate Legislature.
x
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (9, 10)
xi
The Constitution of India Part XV (331, 333)
xii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (13D, 14, 17, 18)
xiii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (16)
xiv
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (19, 20)
xv
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (21, 23, 27)
xvi
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (22)
xvii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (30)
xviii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (78A)
xix
http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/ereforms/core_committee_oo23dec10.doc
xx
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (32, 33, 33A, 33B, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39)
xxi
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (29B, 29C)
xxii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (38)
xxiii
Part I of the Constitution of India, The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (3, 4, 5)
xxiv
Part I of the Constitution of India
xxv
The Constitution of India Part XV (330, 332)
xxvi
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (9A, 9B) also defines the Power of Election
Commission to determine the constituencies to be reserved
xxvii
The Constitution of India Part XV (334)
xxviii
Chapter IX A (171A)
xxix
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (29A)
xxx
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (39A)
xxxi
Part XV (324)
xxxii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (19A)
xxxiii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (Part IV)
xxxiv
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (13A, 13AA, 13B, 13C) Chief Electoral Officer,
District Election Officer, Electoral Registration Officer, Assistant electoral Registration Officer
xxxv
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (60)
xxxvi
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (61, 62)
xxxvii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (64, 65)
xxxviii
The 2009 Lok Sabha Polls took place between 8 AM and 4 PM.
xxxix
http://www.npci.org.in/home.aspx
xl
Part XV (324)
xli
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (66, 67, 71)

12. xlii
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (75A)
xliii
Part I of the Constitution of India
xliv
Chapter IX A (171B, 171C, 171D, 171F, 171G, 171H, 171I) Bribery and undue influence in
elections, Personation at elections, False statement in connection with an election, Illegal payments,
in connection with an election, Failure to keep election accounts. Also defined by The
Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (Part VII)
xlv
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (8, 8A, 9, 9A, 10, 10A, 11A)
xlvi
The Representation Of The People Act, 1950 (58, 58A)