The much debated Online voting in Politics will very soon be a reality. There is a big debate about giving voting rights to NRIs for a long time. Election commission is seriously pondering on methods to allow NRIs to exercise their franchise. Options like voting at India embassies in abroad, postal ballet and online voting are considered but Election Commission had finalized on online voting.
However, secret voting is one of the prime principles in Indian democracy. EC is working on getting the secret ballot perfect through online voting. However this system will not be in place for next general election. Election commission will start working on it only after the completion of elections. The election notification is expected to come by the first week of March and the elections will take place in 7-10 phases across the nation.
There are about 1 crore Indians residing in other countries. At least 60 Lakhs of them are expected to have vote and this number will rise as the online voting comes in to force. This option will have drastic effect on the results of states like Punjab, Kerala, Gujarat which have more number of NRIs.
