[AltoLXI]

The top court said that if the right to vote is a statutory right, then the right to reject a candidate is the fundamental right of speech and expression under Constitution.

The court added that negative voting would lead to systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates.

The court's decision is expected to be implemented in the upcoming state elections. The 'negative vote' may prove a gamechanger in elections, forcing election parties to pay greater attention to what voters seek from candidates.

'Right to Reject' is a proposed voting option in India that would allow voters who support none of the candidates available to them to register an official vote of "none of the above", which is not currently allowed under India election regulation.

Earlier in 2009, the Election Commission of India told the Supreme Court that it wished to offer voters a 'none of the above' button on voting machines.

The government, however, has generally opposed this option.

[saket77]

I am not sure how effective it would be when people themselves don't turn out to vote for a candidate. So, in a situation when people are either too busy turning out to vote or feeling lazy to do so, I am not convinced that they will come out of their house, stand in the queue, just to press a button which says 'none of the above'.

[AbhishekB86]

I would press none of the above. I am not inclined towards corruption or communal stands so I will go vote but for none of the candidates

[aneezan]

I would definitely go and vote when this is implemented. None of the candidates from my constituency back home have ever produced anything valuable. And this is bound to continue.
I will vote and vote for "none of the above".
Guess a large number of people are waiting for a chance to smear the faces of all politicians.

[saket77]

But 'none of the above' will only be effective if there are more rules attached to it; say like if more than 50% of people hit none of the above, there should be fresh elections. It will be of no use if the candidate getting the max. number of votes is considered as the winning candidate.

And who knows, when the Parliament comes up with a new ordinance to reject this too.

[aneezan]

That is a point, however, if at-all, candidates would surely see their votes disappearing. This will at-least make the parties field candidates who have some worth.
However, I agree its only a step. One which I hope will make way for more and better changes in the future. All we can do is hope.

[drmohitg]

I am not sure how useful will this be, but the idea surely brings a smile on my face and would act as a token of my protest. It is ho disheartening to see all political parties indulging in activities to stop parliament function but by some miracle unite on each and every bill concerning them like the bringing them under the RTI act etc.

However the real difference of this none of the above option would be negligible as majority of voters are bought by hopes of false promises or freebies and cash.

[pahwa]

What a Friday. This was a long due ruling from the Apex court. I see lot of educated voters making use of this option. Won't be too long a wait when the candidates contesting elections will publish their CVs and achievements to attract the urban voter.

I do not see this option making a huge change in some parts of the country where votes are casted on the basis of religion, caste and influence factors.

[sammyboy]

I am all for it, unfortunately I have recently seen a trend where a lot of educated voter's names suddenly disappear from the electoral rolls :( . Happened with my mom and dad as well this time, they were redirected from place to place and after spending almost 6 hours and visiting 4 booths had to come back disappointed.

[Mnjdnght]

To me this was long overdue and I've been using the lack of this option as a deterrent for me while debating with friends. As a few others have said before, I am not sure if this will drastically change the voter turnout but I do expect this to start making an impact. Having to force-vote a candidate doesn't exactly tantamount to a fundamental right. I am glad that the SC has finally acknowledged the same.

[srishiva]

Educated and informed voters will use this more. But a candidate is not selected by doing this. Others will choose someone else. I thought every candidate will have one negative against his name

I dont see how the parties will be forced to field proper candidates. It will still go to the person with fat wallet. They wouldn't care how many votes they got, they will be happy if they won.

It will be one extra statistic for novelty.

[sgiitk]

Excellent. I have a gripe even if NOTA polls the highest the joker with the maximum vote count wins. I think the whole lot should be debarred and fresh elections held.

[debugged]

Originally Posted by saket77

I am not convinced that they will come out of their house, stand in the queue, just to press a button which says 'none of the above'.

I've hardly seen big queues when I voted either in Chennai or now in Bangalore and most of the times, the voting booth is within a km of my house. And I think they make sure that is the case in most of the densely packed areas of cities.

Originally Posted by saket77

But 'none of the above' will only be effective if there are more rules attached to it; say like if more than 50% of people hit none of the above, there should be fresh elections.

I completely agree, as people already had the none of the above option indirectly, through either stamping multiple candidates or invalid stamping during paper ballots or using the 49-O rule in case of e-voting (though this is risky as there is no secrecy now). This will be useful only if the "not any of above" option gets majority, then it should result to another round of election for a constituency, with probably all the fielded candidates loosing their deposits.

[mmxylorider]

Hopefully this gets implemented in the right way. But what exactly does this mean?

1. Just because percentage of people opted for this should not mean that amongst the candidates the one with the highest share of remaining votes is the winner.

2. I might be aligned with the ideology of a political party, but not happy with the fielded candidate. The other party candidates are probably good people -Does this mean all contesting candidates are disqualified?

A rejection button should be offered against all the names in the candidate list.

Watching this closely.

[JustCause]

A very useful feature in my opinion. Earlier when one used to go to the polling center and say that he doesn't want to select an option, one used be harassed needlessly by being asked to fill up a form etc., much to the chagrin of the polling officers.

Let's see how many 'None of the Above' votes we record in the upcoming elections.