Election Commission of India
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Election Commission of India (ECI), constitutionally mandated autonomous body that was established in 1950 to foster the democratic process in India by administering federal (central) and state election processes. It organizes and conducts elections to the Indian Parliament and legislatures of all states and for the country’s president and vice president. Its headquarters are in New Delhi.
History and composition
The ECI was instituted on January 25, 1950, deriving its authority from Article 324 of the Constitution of India. In the beginning, it consisted only of the chief election commissioner (CEC). It was later expanded into a three-commissioner body, comprising the CEC and two other commissioners. Each is appointed by the Indian president for a term lasting six years or until a commissioner reaches the age of 65, whichever comes first, and a commissioner cannot be dismissed from office except by parliamentary impeachment. Thus, nearly invulnerable to political influences and scrupulously nonpartisan, the ECI is charged with conducting fair and orderly elections.
The Indian general election is the world’s most extensive democratic exercise. In the early 21st century it encompassed roughly 700 million voters across some 700,000 polling stations in diverse geographic, political, and climatic environments. For the 2024 Lok Sabha elections more than 968 million people registered to vote across 1,050,000 polling stations in the country. The ECI operates through a secretariat with some 550 staff members. Each state has a chief electoral officer with a core staff, and civil officers assume the responsibilities of election officials at the district and constituency levels. During general elections, however, an enormous team of temporary workers—up to 5 million people—are deputized to conduct the polling.
Functions
The ECI supervises, directs, and controls the entire electoral process for both houses of the Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha), state legislatures, and the offices of the president and vice president of the country. It prepares, maintains, and updates the electoral roll (the official list of registered voters) and ensures error-free voter lists. It also issues Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPICs) to registered voters. The ECI launched a program called Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) to raise awareness among potential voters and to encourage them to take part in elections.
The ECI supervises the nomination of candidates, registers political parties and classifies them on national and state levels, and monitors election campaigns, including political fundraising. In addition, it enforces a Model Code of Conduct, a set of guidelines that political parties and electoral candidates must follow during elections. Furthermore, it facilitates media coverage, organizes polling stations, assigns voters to polling stations, and oversees vote counting and the declaration of results. The ECI is authoritative and decisive in matters of elections—for instance, where the law is ambiguous—but it can be challenged in courts of law. It is safeguarded from executive interference in its functioning.
Stages of elections
In India, elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies are held every five years, unless the term is extended during an emergency or the house is dissolved earlier. Elections to the Lok Sabha or a state legislature must be held within six months of dissolution. The ECI follows a structured process to conduct elections for the Lok Sabha and the state legislatures:
- The process begins with the ECI announcing the schedule for the elections, which includes key dates, such as the last date for filing nominations, polling dates, and the date for counting votes. Following this announcement, the political parties and electoral candidates must adhere to the Model Code of Conduct.
- Next, the ECI issues official notifications for the elections, outlining the schedule and guidelines.
- Those who intend to contest the elections then file their nominations. The ECI checks all nominations to ensure they are valid and meet the eligibility criteria. It may reject nominations if they do not meet guidelines. Candidates are allowed to withdraw their applications within a designated time period.
- After the nominations are filed, the candidates and political parties are allowed to launch their election campaigns to request that the electorate votes in their favor. All campaigns must end 48 hours before polling begins.
- On designated polling days, the ECI supervises voting to ensure orderly elections.
- Once polling has been completed for all constituencies, election officers tally the votes. The ECI then announces the list of winning candidates and officially declares the election results.
- Finally, the commission oversees the swearing-in of the newly elected members and the formal constitution of the legislative body.
Challenges
There is a mandate in India that no voter should have to travel more than 1.24 miles (2 km) to vote. This mandate, along with the difficult terrain in some places, poses a challenge for election officials. In the first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, some polling officers trekked 24 miles (39 km) in difficult terrain to reach a single voter in Malogam, a remote village in Arunachal Pradesh near the Chinese border.
The ECI has to navigate many issues in overseeing elections. Managing the vast number of registered voters across the extensive territory of India is a significant challenge. Ensuring accurate voter lists, accounting for voter migration, and encouraging the population to exercise their voting rights require meticulous planning. During elections, the commission is responsible for preventing misconduct such as bribing voters, taking over polling stations, and misusing media to spread misinformation or biased news and campaign content. Occasionally, concerns have been raised about manipulation of electronic voting machines (EVMs), which are used to cast ballots. Despite being an independent body, the commission may face efforts to politically influence or pressure it. Additionally, the ECI has to track illegal or unscrupulous sources of funds for political parties and candidates.
Initiatives
The ECI has undertaken several measures to keep elections fair and to encourage voter participation. These include using state-owned electronic media for the parties’ political campaigning, making efforts to check the criminalization of politics, computerizing electoral rolls and providing voter identity cards, and strictly adhering to a code of conduct that ensures fairness for all parties and candidates. The ECI is required to publish the criminal antecedents of candidates. In 2024 it launched the Know Your Candidate (KYC) app, making this information easily accessible to voters. That same year the ECI began to facilitate home voting for voters over 85 years old and for voters with disabilities.