Bigger India
Why It Would Be Unwise to Enable Proxy Voting Across India for the 2019 Polls
Instead of tinkering with the electoral edifice for short-term political gains, the government must realise that proxy voting is highly susceptible electoral fraud as it purely depends on the trust of a third party.
On December 18, 2017, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad introduced The Representation Of The People (Amendment) Bill, 2017, in the Lok Sabha. As a two-page Bill, it is fairly short in comparison to bills running into nearly a hundred pages. The brevity of the Bill may even tempt legislators to dismiss it as a mere technical amendment.
However, this small document, once passed, can significantly alter the manner in which electoral politics is carried out in India, as it provides legal sanction to ‘proxy voting’ for elections.