Notanymore

NOTAnymore.

I’m sure a lot of you must’ve noticed the sudden flood of political propaganda on social media. On Facebook, memes from your favorite meme page are now sandwiched between posts of political parties taking digs at each other. Some of these are way funnier than the memes themselves.

It can get overwhelming, I agree. Especially if you’re a first time voter. So many choices, so many promises, so many controversies.

This was when I arrived at the inevitable question -

"What if I don’t find any of the candidates capable enough?"

Turns out, our kind Electoral Commission has made a provision for this.
Expanded as None Of The Above, NOTA is a button option one can find in the EVMs used for the state and parliamentary elections conducted after 2013.

It has figured in 37 assembly elections and one Lok Sabha election till date.

"GREAT! So NOTA it is! But what impact is it going to have on the results of the election?"

“NOTA will hardly have any impact on the results of an election. In the first place, NOTA was introduced with an idea that more choices will give way to a higher turnout of voting in the elections. NOTA will give an option to the voters to express their disapproval of all the candidates contesting in the election and provide a way to express their disenchantment in the contemporary political system of the country.” - The Electoral Commission Of India

In other words, even if the count of NOTA is significantly higher than the number of votes, any candidate has secured in a given constituency, the candidate with the highest number of votes will still be declared as the winner.

We must understand the gravity of this. The party you deemed incapable will still come into power irrespective of your NOTA vote. It has no arithmetic value in an election. NOTA does not bother most political parties in India, given that it does not have the prerogative to recall an election or leave the seat vacant until a future time.

"What do we do now?"

Our next best bet is to vote for independent candidates who contest for bringing about a genuine change in the system. This will require quite a bit of research and effort. But it’s imperative that we do whatever it takes.These candidtes might not promise much but this also means he/she will be the least dissapointing.

Don’t waste a vote.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any” - Alice Walker