Why the votes of Indian soldiers are being rejected

In Punjab, as many as half the postal ballots have been rejected; in Uttarakhand 26% don't count

The Himalayan state of Uttarakhand has been one of the highest contributors of army officers of late, but one out of every fourth vote cast by the men in uniform through the postal ballot gets rejected in the state. Election Commission of India (ECI) data suggests that in the 2012 assembly elections in the state, almost 26 per cent of the postal ballots were rejected. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, one out of every five postal ballots was rejected.

Although armed forces personnel, classified as service voters, are not the only ones who use the postal ballot, it is the most convenient means of voting for a soldier posted on the frontlines or outside his native state. Other service voters include India’s foreign mission staff and armed police personnel of a state operating outside their home state. Among those who can use the postal ballot also include Election Commission staff posted outside their state on poll duty. In state elections, those on poll duty can vote through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). For instance, in the recently concluded voting in Punjab, all 3,129 ECI officials voted through EVMs rather than a postal ballot. Clearly, it is the armed forces personnel who benefit the most from the use of postal ballots.

The problem of rejection of postal ballots is not just confined to Uttarakhand. In Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state which also sends the largest number of soldiers to the armed forces, 24 per cent of the postal ballots were rejected in the 2012 assembly elections.

Punjab, whose residents reportedly constitute around eight per cent of the armed forces, fares even worse than the other states in this regard. Almost half the postal ballots were rejected in the state during the last assembly elections. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, one out of every three postal ballots got rejected in the state. In the last parliamentary elections, 5,190 postal ballots were cast in Punjab. In Uttarakhand and UP, 43,323 and 161,795 postal ballots were cast respectively.

An ECI official explains that one of the common reasons for rejection invariably relates to serial numbers. Either the serial number of the ballot is not written on the envelope or there is a mismatch between the two. Service voters get a different coloured ballot than other types of voters entitled to use the postal ballot. It consists of two envelopes. The soldier has to mark his vote on the ballot paper and place it in the smaller envelope. A filled and attested declaration form along with the smaller envelope containing the ballot has to be enclosed in a larger envelope addressed to the Returning Officer (RO) in his constituency. On the smaller envelope, the serial number of the ballot paper should be written. The ECI recently noted that postal ballots were getting rejected because the voter failed to write the serial number of the ballot paper on the smaller envelope.

The ECI in a letter dated October 4, 2016 gave a solution to fix this problem. It instructed that instead of voter, the staff of the RO would now be required to fill in the serial number of the ballot paper on the smaller envelope. The ECI said, “The staff entrusted with this duty should be instructed to be very careful while filling in the serial number so that it is entered correctly. Polling staff voting in the facilitation centre should be asked to make sure that the serial number of the ballot paper is duly entered on the envelope so that rejection on this ground is avoided.” The People’s Representation Act, 1961 lists eight reasons for a ballot to be rejected.

Given that the victory margins are often wafer thin, postal ballots in some cases could well turn out to be the deciding factor. In 2009, the ECI had changed rules so that losing candidates do not get an opportunity to call for re-verification of postal ballots. The ECI had issued instructions that postal ballots would be counted first. After a gap of around half an hour, the EVM counting would commence. In case the margin of victory is the number of valid postal ballots; a mandatory re-verification of rejected postal ballot papers has to be carried out with the entire process being video-recorded.  

Before these rules were introduced, in states like Uttarakhand, the rejections often hinged on the bizarre. In the 2007 assembly elections, more than half the postal ballots in certain constituencies were rejected. Particularly bizarre was the case of Kedarnath, where 85 per cent of the 613 postal ballots were rejected. In Rudraprayag, the district headquarters 100 out of the 346 postal ballots were rejected.

The ECI doesn’t disclose the reasons for the rejection of a postal ballot. It is commendable that the commission has taken active steps to deal with the ‘serial number problem’ and issued instructions over time to reduce the number of postal ballot rejections. It remains to be seen whether India’s soldiers, overwhelmingly from three of the five states where polls are being held, will get a chance to be counted more this time around.