Report No. 170

Part VIII

An alternative method of election

8.1. In the working paper, we had set out in the Appendix, "An alternative method of election".Such an alternative method of election was suggested by certain eminent persons with long experience in public life. This method goes a long way in ensuring purity of elections, keeping out criminals and other undesirable elements and also serves to minimise the role and importance of caste and religion. The said method was set out in the working paper as under:

"the idea is this:

(a) no candidate should be declared elected unless he obtains at least 50% of the votes cast;

(b) the ballot paper shall contain a column at the end which can be marked by a voter who is not inclined to vote for any of the candidates on the ballot paper, which is called hereinafter as 'negative vote'. (A voter can cast a negative vote only when he is not inclined to vote for any of the candidates on the ballot paper);

(c) for the purposes of calculating the fifty per cent votes of the votes cast, even the negative votes will be treated as 'votes cast';

(d) if no person gets 50% or more votes, then there should be a 'run-off' election between the two candidates receiving the highest number of votes;

(e) in the run-off election too, there should be a provision for a negative vote and even here there should be a requirement that only that candidate will be declared elected who receives 50% or more of the 'votes cast' as explained hereinabove;

(f) if no candidate gets 50% or more of the votes cast in the run-off, there should be a fresh election from that constituency."