San Francisco: In her landmark study, 'Why Electoral Integrity Matters', political scientist Pippa Norris offers a foundational insight into what makes elections legitimate. An election, she argues, is not a single event but a sequential chain - 11 links, stretching from drawing of constituency boundaries and compilation of voter rolls, through campaign conduct, to counting of ballots and acceptance of results.
Violate standards at any one link, and the chain weakens. But Norris identifies something even more corrosive than individual violations. When rules of the electoral game are set unilaterally by the very actors who stand to gain from them, the entire premise of democratic competition collapses. Elections cease being the mechanism by which power is contested and become the mechanism by which power becomes entrenched. Today, India is failing this test, not only in the conduct of elections but in its architecture as well.
The first exhibit is delimitation. The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, introduced in a special parliamentary session on April 16, proposed expanding the Lok Sabha to 850 seats. Before addressing the question of fairness to southern states or adequacy of the formula adopted, GoI exercised discretion to rush a proposal without consultation, independent oversight or even proper circulation of the legislative text among lawmakers.
It opted to rely on an older census as a population benchmark, even though it had finally begun a new one, although years behind schedule. An established independent process was replaced by a majoritarian one. Southern states, which have spent decades responsibly controlling their populations, would have had their political representation determined by the very party that stands to gain most from a north-heavy reapportionment.
The Bill was defeated on April 17. But the method it employed - rewriting foundational rules of electoral competition through a parliamentary majority - signals a worrying pattern of unilateralism and discretion.
The second exhibit, even more troubling, is the willingness of independent institutions to allow that pattern to take hold. This is most visible in how Election Commission has conducted Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls ahead of the assembly elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
SIR is not new in principle. Periodic voter list revisions are a legitimate and necessary exercise. What is new is the scale, timing, methodology and near-total absence of procedural safeguards, leading to widespread confusion and reports of large-scale deletions from the rolls.
Enumeration forms that determined whether a voter remained on the list, or was removed, were collected door-to-door by officials under pressure from above and subject to influence from local political actors on the ground. Voters who did not physically receive or return their forms - immigrants, rural poor, seasonal workers - were treated as absent or untraceable and, thus, deleted.
Even voters with all required papers found their names missing. In West Bengal, a TMC municipal councillor walked into a crematorium, demanding his own last rites be performed after EC declared him dead.
By acting with discretionary power, concentrating voter deletions in incumbent parties' strongholds, appearing to align with a government-driven agenda on illegal immigration that exceeds its mandate, and refusing to engage with criticism, EC has invited legitimate suspicions of partisanship. In Assam, it redrew electoral boundaries in lieu of a standalone Delimitation Commission, conferring an electoral advantage on BJP.
This is precisely what Norris means when she writes about unilateral setting of electoral rules. The problem is not just that errors occurred. Errors in any revision exercise of this scale are inevitable. The problem is structural. The process and its rules are set by actors who stand to gain electorally from it without independent or cross-party oversight mechanisms, and without any independent body with the power to halt, audit or redesign the process.
EC, whose leadership is appointed through a process in which the executive has a decisive role, and which Supreme Court itself has questioned, designed and executed the exercise unilaterally. In doing so, it risks functioning as a political instrument in administrative clothing.
Norris demonstrates, with cross-national evidence, that perceptions of malpractice - even when not definitively proven - erode political legitimacy, depress voter participation and fuel protest. India is seeing all three. SC hearings running in parallel with campaign rallies, judicial officers held hostage, and opposition parties contemplating the impeachment of CEC.
EC once earned its moral authority by functioning as a genuinely independent arbiter, feared by governments of every stripe. That authority has been significantly eroded. Norris' warning is unambiguous: procedurally flawed elections do not merely produce bad outcomes - they delegitimise the system entirely.
Millions of citizens in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are going to the polls, uncertain whether their names are on the list and whether the contest is genuinely fair. This uncertainty is not a technical glitch. It is a democratic failure.
Violate standards at any one link, and the chain weakens. But Norris identifies something even more corrosive than individual violations. When rules of the electoral game are set unilaterally by the very actors who stand to gain from them, the entire premise of democratic competition collapses. Elections cease being the mechanism by which power is contested and become the mechanism by which power becomes entrenched. Today, India is failing this test, not only in the conduct of elections but in its architecture as well.
The first exhibit is delimitation. The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, introduced in a special parliamentary session on April 16, proposed expanding the Lok Sabha to 850 seats. Before addressing the question of fairness to southern states or adequacy of the formula adopted, GoI exercised discretion to rush a proposal without consultation, independent oversight or even proper circulation of the legislative text among lawmakers.
It opted to rely on an older census as a population benchmark, even though it had finally begun a new one, although years behind schedule. An established independent process was replaced by a majoritarian one. Southern states, which have spent decades responsibly controlling their populations, would have had their political representation determined by the very party that stands to gain most from a north-heavy reapportionment.
The Bill was defeated on April 17. But the method it employed - rewriting foundational rules of electoral competition through a parliamentary majority - signals a worrying pattern of unilateralism and discretion.
The second exhibit, even more troubling, is the willingness of independent institutions to allow that pattern to take hold. This is most visible in how Election Commission has conducted Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls ahead of the assembly elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
SIR is not new in principle. Periodic voter list revisions are a legitimate and necessary exercise. What is new is the scale, timing, methodology and near-total absence of procedural safeguards, leading to widespread confusion and reports of large-scale deletions from the rolls.
Enumeration forms that determined whether a voter remained on the list, or was removed, were collected door-to-door by officials under pressure from above and subject to influence from local political actors on the ground. Voters who did not physically receive or return their forms - immigrants, rural poor, seasonal workers - were treated as absent or untraceable and, thus, deleted.
Even voters with all required papers found their names missing. In West Bengal, a TMC municipal councillor walked into a crematorium, demanding his own last rites be performed after EC declared him dead.
By acting with discretionary power, concentrating voter deletions in incumbent parties' strongholds, appearing to align with a government-driven agenda on illegal immigration that exceeds its mandate, and refusing to engage with criticism, EC has invited legitimate suspicions of partisanship. In Assam, it redrew electoral boundaries in lieu of a standalone Delimitation Commission, conferring an electoral advantage on BJP.
This is precisely what Norris means when she writes about unilateral setting of electoral rules. The problem is not just that errors occurred. Errors in any revision exercise of this scale are inevitable. The problem is structural. The process and its rules are set by actors who stand to gain electorally from it without independent or cross-party oversight mechanisms, and without any independent body with the power to halt, audit or redesign the process.
EC, whose leadership is appointed through a process in which the executive has a decisive role, and which Supreme Court itself has questioned, designed and executed the exercise unilaterally. In doing so, it risks functioning as a political instrument in administrative clothing.
Norris demonstrates, with cross-national evidence, that perceptions of malpractice - even when not definitively proven - erode political legitimacy, depress voter participation and fuel protest. India is seeing all three. SC hearings running in parallel with campaign rallies, judicial officers held hostage, and opposition parties contemplating the impeachment of CEC.
EC once earned its moral authority by functioning as a genuinely independent arbiter, feared by governments of every stripe. That authority has been significantly eroded. Norris' warning is unambiguous: procedurally flawed elections do not merely produce bad outcomes - they delegitimise the system entirely.
Millions of citizens in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are going to the polls, uncertain whether their names are on the list and whether the contest is genuinely fair. This uncertainty is not a technical glitch. It is a democratic failure.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)
Gilles Verniers
Researcher at CERI (Centre for International Studies), Sciences Po, Paris