What is method of Presidential elections in India?
Q. Which of the following formula/s are correct with regard to the President’s election?
- Published on 28 Feb 17a. 1, 2
b. 2, 3
c. 1, 3
d. 2
ANSWER: 2
- The election of the President shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.
- The voting at such election shall be by secret ballot.
- The Constitution says that there shall be uniformity in the scale of representation of different states.
- There will also be parity between the states as a whole and the Union at the election of the President.
To achieve this, the number of votes which each elected member of the legislative assembly of each state and the Parliament is entitled to cast at such election shall be determined in the following manner -
- Every elected member of the legislative assembly of a state shall have as many votes as there are multiples of one thousand in the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by the total number of the elected members of the assembly.
This can be written as -
- Every elected member of either House of Parliament shall have such number of votes as may be obtained by dividing the total number of votes assigned to members of the legislative assemblies of the states by the total number of the elected members of both the Houses of Parliament.
This can be written as -
- The proportional representation system ensures that the successful candidate is returned by the absolute majority of votes.
- A candidate, in order to be declared elected to the office of President, must secure a fixed quota of votes.
- The quota of votes is determined by dividing the total number of valid votes polled by the number of candidates to be elected plus one and adding one to the quotient.
The formula can be written as -
- Each member of the Electoral College is given only one ballot paper.
- The voter is required to indicate his preferences by marking 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. against the names of candidates.
- This means that the voter can indicate as many preferences as there are candidates in the competition.
- In the first phase, the first preference votes are counted.
- Say if a candidate secures the required quota in this phase, he is declared elected.
- Else, the process of transfer of votes is started.
- The ballots of the candidate securing the least number of first preference votes are cancelled.
- His second preference votes are transferred to the first preference votes of other candidates.
- This process continues till a candidate secures the required quota.
