Re: [nukkad] Query about ballot papers

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Rohit Zaveri wrote: As many as 80% voters believe all candidates are useless
!!! This is a
negative approach to the whole issue of voting. It is merely suggestive of a
laggard mind belonging to a socially, educationally, economically frustrated
and laggard community !

# On the contrary, it will be the socially, educationally and economically
advanced sections of the society that will stamp their votes for 'None of
the above". Socially, educationally and economically frustrated and laggard
communities will be part of one vote bank or the other and do not apply
their mind while voting. 

When the Ballot paper does not give a real choice to the discerning voter,
he has only three options - to abstain from voting or to deliberately
invalidate his vote or to vote for the lesser devil. Why not give him a
chance to say all of them are devils?

If the Ballot paper gives a last choice such as "NONE OF THE ABOVE", the
dissatisfied voter can cast his vote there. Such an action by him will not,
of course, influence the outcome of the election but the impact can be felt
in the selection of candidates by political parties.

In many constituencies, very thin margins decide the outcome of elections.
In many assembly segments it is less than 1000.  Thus if the voters who
suspect the integrity of the candidates votes for 'None of the above',
Political parties will know that such people form a sizable chunk of the
electorate and strategy to woo such voters could enable them to win. In
other words, I am hoping that it will pursuade political parties to field
candidates with clean image. 

V.K.Venugopal



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