• UGI USER
  • Sep 30, 2023
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Q. Bringing out the recent amendments introduced in the Election Laws Amendment Act, 2021,discuss the various concerns associated with the linking of Aadhaar with electoral roll data.

 

Approach

  • Giving a brief introduction, highlight the key amendments introduced in the Election Laws Amendment Act, 2021.
  • Discuss the various concerns associated with linking Aadhaar with electoral roll data in this context.
  • Conclude accordingly.

Answer

The Election Laws Amendment Act, 2021 was enacted to amend some provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1950 and 1951 to implement certain electoral reforms.

Key amendments introduced in the Act are the following:

  • Linking electoral roll data with Aadhaar: It provides for amendment of Section 23 of the Representation of People’s Act, 1950, enabling the linking of electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem. Sufficient cause has to be provided, if persons are unable to furnish their Aadhaar number. This aims to curb the menace of multiple enrolment of the same person in different places and will help in stopping bogus voting and fraudulent votes.
  • Qualifying date for enrolment in electoral roll: Earlier, only January 1st was the qualifying date for updating voting rolls. This implied that a person who turned 18 ( i.e. was eligible to vote) after January 1st could enroll in the electoral roll only when the roll would be prepared/ revised the following year. The Act amends this to provide four qualifying dates in a calendar year, which will be January 1st, April 1st, July 1st, and October 1st.
  • Enabling gender neutrality: The 1950 Act permits certain persons who are ordinarily a resident in a constituency to register in electoral rolls. Such persons include those holding a service qualification, such as members of the armed forces or central government employees posted outside India. The wives of such persons are also deemed to be ordinarily residing in the same constituency if they reside with them. The 1951 Act enables the wife of a person holding a service qualification to vote either in person or by postal ballot. The amended Act replaces the term ‘wife’ with ‘spouse’ in both the Acts, making them more gender-neutral.
  • Requisitioning of premises for election purposes: The 1951 Act permits the state government to requisition premises needed for being used as polling stations, or for storing ballot boxes after a poll has been conducted. The Act expands the purposes for which such premises can be requisitioned. These include using the premises for counting, storage of voting machines and poll-related material, and accommodation of security forces and polling personnel.

Concerns associated with linking of Aadhaar with electoral roll data include:

  • Conflict of interest: Maintenance of the voters’ lists is a primary responsibility of the Election Commission of India (ECI). Since, the ECI has no control on either enrolment or de-duplication in Aadhaar, it appears a potential conflict of interest to use Aadhaar for electoral rolls.
  • Political profiling: By linking electoral IDs with Aadhaar numbers, it is easier to track which voter has accessed welfare subsidies and benefits using his/her Aadhaar and can be used for political profiling.
  • Risk of disenfranchisement: The inclusion and exclusion errors of Aadhaar database would cascade to the electoral database leading to risk of disenfranchisement, especially of the marginalised communities.
  • Violation of the Supreme Court judgement: The Supreme Court in the Puttaswamy case judgment had put limits to the use of Aadhaar to financial and welfare benefits and held that the Aadhaar card scheme is purely voluntary.
  • Privacy concerns: It will hinder a citizen’s right to privacy by providing the accessibility of voter profiling through the linkage of data sets that Aadhaar provides. Further, linking of the same can pave the way which undermines the secrecy of the ballot, which is the hallmark of constitutional democracy.
  • Scope for fraud: There are no publicly available audit reports either on the efficacy of Aadhaar deduplication or on the authenticity of the Aadhaar database, making it vulnerable to cyber fraud.

To address the above concerns, India needs a robust data protection Act regulating the use and sharing of personal data between the citizens and the government, and between the government agencies. Further, deliberations and discussions with the civil society are important given the tricky and contentious nature of the issues.