NOTA good enough pun? That’s beside the point. It’s simple - if you’re not satisfied with the candidates wishing to represent you, go vote for NOTA (None Of The Above), because at least your vote counts. But is that enough?

In the Great Indian Political Scenario with the general opinion being that the currently ruling party seems to have a massive stronghold and their opposition is weak, and some people even raising a supposedly rhetorical question of “If not them then who?”, NOTA awareness seems very attractive, at least to me.

Now, don’t say my opinion or suggestion doesn’t count because I didn’t (couldn’t) vote in my constituency, but there seems to be a ‘loophole’ of some sorts, if I should call it that, in the NOTA rule. I would have loved to vote NOTA if I could, but I have a lot of doubts if it helps at all.

Here’s the scoop: I recently came across a post on Instagram on NOTA awareness. Here’s the part I need you to focus on: “If there are 20 voters and 12 votes for NOTA, their votes aren’t considered, and of the remaining eight, whoever gets five votes is considered the winner.”

With some research, I find this: Election Commission India has stated in some document mentioning their provision of NOTA that:

…even if, in any extreme case, the number of votes against NOTA is more than the number of votes secured by the candidates, the candidate who secures the largest number of votes among the contesting candidates shall be declared to be elected…

“Their votes aren’t considered”? Doesn’t anyone see a problem with the “20 voters and 12 NOTA” example? Now, an observation from this situation is that if some of the voters who didn’t vote for any candidate voted instead for the one who got three votes, they would’ve crushed the one with 5 out of 8 votes. However, the problem is with the fact that even though “None Of The Above won” here, it didn’t matter because the one who got 5 out of remaining eight votes would win.

So, taking the next highest vote count is how usually NOTA goes about in India. This is supposed to possibly gradually make a change with parties getting better candidates and understanding what people really want, but, in no way it guarantees it soon enough, especially in the situation we are in with weak options, party-wise (note: Party-wise isn’t the way to vote, it should be for the deserving candidate). It will only gradually make a change. Does it go further than that?

Other than NOTA awareness, we should push for strengthening our NOTA vote. If NOTA “wins” or has a significant percentage of votes (usually victory margins, which could prove to be game changers if you do some math), there should be re-elections. Maybe political parties who lose to NOTA should bear re-election costs, or their candidate should not be allowed to contest that election for some time.

Now, elections in India is a serious business, both in the importance of it and money spent behind it. However, Sanjay Parikh, a Supreme Court advocate who argued in favor of NOTA, had stated in a 2013 interview:

“Some people argue that the implementation of NOTA will drive up election expenses. But a tainted candidate who indulges in corruption and malpractices is a greater cost for the country. It is only the desire to continue in power and the greed for money that take prominence over values.”

It turns out, Maharashtra and Haryana’s state ECs have amended the NOTA laws for their municipal elections if I’m right, with NOTA as a fictional candidate and optional re-elections.

Well, I could only sit and wonder who is in fact getting that finger…

Does all this mean even if I had gone to vote, it wouldn’t matter if I voted NOTA?

If you’re a neutral/NOTA fan and feel devastated by the fact that in the end, it doesn’t even matter, then you’re with me. It’s just better if I find out more about my candidates and then vote for the relatively less lousy candidate than vote NOTA.

(Story time!) As a very vocal neutral person, I’ve once had candidates for some student council elections come to me asking for my vote. On multiple occasions during the campaigning phase, I had raised my voice on how the opinions of the neutrals weren’t considered, and I was very vocal about my thoughts and desires to other people. They knew I wasn’t going to side with any one of the two available candidates that easy. I felt powerful to some extent because it was as if my vote was crucial to someone’s victory. That’s how being neutral should be - it’s not that we don’t care, we care more to understand that taking a side won’t help as much as the greater overall good will.

I’ve mostly been neutral during situations in my life, be it while watching a football match, a quarrel between my friends, student council elections or the Great Indian Political Scenario. But, since I do agree to the general opinion that we need better leaders since for some reason we’re shitting on many of our current ones, we need to make the neutrals count. Neutrals matter. It’s not about the people on either side all the time, neutrals need a greater voice, and they can possibly be more potent than either side because they can force the right things to come out of either party.

To end this long post, here’s a thing I need to point out from the introduction - “If not them, then who?” is not the right question to ask here. Rather, it should be: “If not them, then what?”. And the answer to that, is democracy. Times like these will call for people to step up and do the right things, not because it was on their manifesto, but since it’s the most logical thing to do. Need I say it’s doom otherwise?

Most of the things I wrote above was from a comment on that same Instagram post, but the more important point here is that you read it at least through this. I stumbled upon the example case and did a little bit of Internet searching and Wikipedia reading on my own, and this is what I came up with. So, even if it was a comment, it’s as good as me raising my opinion/suggestion. Feel free to start a discussion below!

Edit: I mainly remember reading from this and asking my dad about this ‘loophole’, so I apologize for not having mentioned sources for my reading. But it was a very small time period of searching and reading, so the Wiki article might be enough, because as it stands, that is the situation.

I also saw this video from The Quint that has a panel analyze the current implementation of NOTA and its impact.