Thread by @gautambhatia88

Now that this is over, it's the best time to note that there are enduring problems with our election process that need to be addressed for the long-term health of our democracy.

I wrote about some of them here earlier:

thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a…

A thread.
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1. The huge, huge issue, as everyone knows: electoral bonds. Limitless, anonymous corporate donations to political parties, opaque to the public, transparent to the ruling party. Don't need to say much more, just read @nit_set's ten-part series on @HuffPostIndia for this.

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(The Supreme Court is still to hear the case. It's been pending for almost two years).

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2. Undermining of the secret ballot. It is now possible to pin-point - to a reasonable degree - how blocks of people voted in an election. This lets politicians make credible threats of exacting vengeance after the result if they win, and sway the vote (happened in 2019).

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To know more, read Ishita Trivedi's work, here: scroll.in/article/920199…

Note that the SC refused to hear a petition to address this through the use of totaliser machines. So the issue it still open, for future elections.

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3. Voter purging is a reality. Targeted voter purging is a realistic possibility. @digitaldutta has worked extensively on this, and has a petition in the Telangana High Court pending. For more, see:

thenewsminute.com/article/democr…

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Add to this the related issue of voter profiling and individual voter targeting (the old "converting beneficiaries to voters") using databases such as Aadhaar, an enduring and continuing issue.

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8. And then of course, you have the issue of tallying EVM/VVPAT results - until the EC does so, suspicions about EVM will remain, no matter which way individual elections go. In 2019, EC refused to do so on the ground that it would delay results by 5-6 days.

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But given that the EC is happy conducting elections in single states like Jharkhand in multiple phases over many weeks, this explanation isn't credible. To do it would ensure putting to rest once and for all suspicions about EVMS. Here again the SC, in 2019, came up short.

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In sum: electoral bonds, non-secret ballot, voter purges, VVPAT verification - these are all issues with our elections that undermine democratic processes, and are independent of the results of individual elections. The need to be addressed, and now is the time to start.

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