{"id":34596,"date":"2022-11-06T04:38:29","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T23:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34596"},"modified":"2025-04-20T15:26:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T09:56:15","slug":"what-is-the-status-of-remote-voting-for-nris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-the-status-of-remote-voting-for-nris\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the Status of Remote Voting for Nris?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Voting for NRIs<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Recently, the Supreme Court disposed of a batch of petitions seeking remote voting for non-resident Indians (NRIs).<\/li>\n<li>This disposal came after the assurance of the Attorney General that the Centre was looking at ways to facilitate distance voting for NRIs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Voting for NRIs<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Size of the NRI electorate<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>According to estimates, India has the largest diaspora population, with nearly 1.35 crore non-resident Indians spread across the globe.\n<ul>\n<li>Many of them are in the Gulf countries, the U.S. and the U.K.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 99,844 NRIs registered and 25,606 electors turned up to vote, with a majority hailing from Kerala (25,534).<\/li>\n<li>Of the registered overseas electors, 90% belonged to Kerala. Others registered are from Gujarat, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu among other States.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Reason for low NRI registration and voting<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>India had amended the Representation of the People Act in 2010 to enable eligible NRIs who had stayed abroad beyond six months to vote.<\/li>\n<li>However, this amendment put a condition that these NRI electors will have to visit the polling booth in person.<\/li>\n<li>This is the major reason behind the low percentage of NRI registration and voting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The debate around NRI Voting<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Many observers support the idea that NRIs must visit the pooling booth in person. As per them, those\u00a0who migrated abroad should not be given special privileges in voting.<\/li>\n<li>There is other School of thought which argue that NRIs should not be deprived of the franchise because they exercised their right to freely practise a profession or trade.<\/li>\n<li>Another question raised is whether expatriates who have been living abroad for a long period of time, say upwards of two years, should be given voting rights.<\/li>\n<li>Other democracies allow absentee voting if overseas electors are not abroad for a specified period and\/or if they mention an \u201cintent to return\u201d.\n<ul>\n<li>Absentee voting enables persons who cannot appear at their designated polling places to vote from another location.<\/li>\n<li>The usual method of absentee voting is by mail, although provision is sometimes made for voting at prescribed places in advance of the polling date.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Steps taken by the government so far<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Since the in-person proviso of the amended Act discouraged many, petitions were filed in the Supreme Court between 2013 and 2014 by NRIs.<\/li>\n<li>The Election Commission of India (ECI) formed a committee in 2014 on the Court\u2019s direction to explore the options for overseas electors.<\/li>\n<li>The committee narrowed it down to two remote voting options \u2014\u00a0e-postal ballot and proxy voting.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS)<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>ETPBS involves the NRI voter\u00a0sending an application\u00a0to the returning officer in person or online. The returning officer will send the ballot electronically.<\/li>\n<li>The voter can then register their mandate on the ballot printout and send it back with an attested declaration.<\/li>\n<li>The voter will either send the ballot by ordinary post or drop it at an Indian Embassy where it would be segregated and posted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Proxy voting<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Proxy voting enables voters to appoint proxies to vote on their behalf.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In India,\u00a0ETPBS voting and proxy voting are currently available to service voters, like those in the armed forces or diplomatic missions.<\/li>\n<li>In 2017, however, the government introduced a Bill to amend the Representation of People Act to remove the condition of in-person voting for NRIs and enable them to vote through proxies.\n<ul>\n<li>The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in 2018 but never introduced in the Upper House, eventually lapsed with the 16th Lok Sabha.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Current status<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2020, the ECI wrote to the Law Ministry that it was \u201ctechnically and administratively ready\u201d to facilitate ETPBS for NRIs in the 2021 Assembly elections in five States.<\/li>\n<li>However, the MEA flagged huge logistical challenges relating to identity verification of voters, absence of polling agents, the burden on embassy staff etc.<\/li>\n<li>Later, the Law Ministry in March 2022 said that the\u00a0Centre was exploring the possibility of allowing online voting for NRIs.<\/li>\n<li>Recently, in November 2022, the government has given assurance in the Supreme Court that it is looking into various options to enable distance voting.<\/li>\n<li>It is yet to be seen, however, if any of the remote voting options materialise before the 2024 elections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NRI can vote in the constituency in which his\/her place of residence, as mentioned in passport,is locate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}