CEC may witness US elections

The Federal Election Commission of America has invited Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy to see how the US presidential election is conducted.

Krishnamurthy told rediff.com he might accept the invitation.

"The American system of voting is very different from that in India," he said. "They vote in many ways. They vote in a conventional manner, with the help of machines, and they also punch votes. From metros to towns to districts their system varies. The Indian system is simpler."

He said that India has many advantages over other countries when it comes to holding polls. "Not only is our machine simpler, we now have identity cards. We have a model code of conduct for the guidance of political parties and candidates, which is quite unique. And most important is that India has a centralised, uniform election machinery, unlike America."

In the Lok Sabha in May, more than 380 million people voted on more than one million machines.

He said another major difference is that in America, whenever any contentious issue arises, the judiciary gets involved. But in India courts never interfere from the date of announcement of polls to the completion of counting.

In the US there is a provision of invalid votes but in India there is no such provision.

An Indian voter, under the People's Representatives Act, Section 49-O, can register a protest vote, meaning that he can say, "I don't want to vote." In all polling booths a register is kept for voters who want to register their protest.

Krishnamurthy said, "I am trying to improve the system. If all parties agree we can have a category on the machine itself, which will allow voters to express 'None of the above', meaning that voters should have the privilege to express displeasure against the candidates."

Once a protest vote is registered no one can misuse that person's vote.

The EC is earning kudos from all over the world.

Last July, Krishnamurthy went to Cambridge to participate in a conference on electoral democracy, where India was praised for it's mammoth exercise.

Recently, India signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations under which the EC will provide personnel and logistical and technical assistance to UN electoral monitoring activities.

The UN is likely to take India's help in conducting elections in Iraq and a few countries in south America and Africa.

The EC has also signed such MoUs with Russia, Nepal, Mexico, Ivory Coast and many other countries.

In the Afghanistan election body, two advisors and former EC officers are holding top posts. Surinder Mendiratta is serving as an international member on the Joint Electoral Management Body of Afghanistan while K J Rao has been appointed as electoral offences investigation and enforcement officer under the UN's assistance mission in Afghanistan.

India also supplies indelible ink in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia and Nigeria.

Interestingly, Krishnamurthy, a former Indian Revenue Service officer, has forwarded many CDs containing some 4,500 affidavits of assets owned by all the candidates who contested the Lok Sabha election to the Ministry of Finance for scrutiny. The ministry is expected to revert by November 2004.

"It may take longer," he said.