“The efforts
of the government alone will never be enough. In the end, the people must
choose and the people must help themselves.” By: John F. Kennedy.
Better the elections process of the country; better
the politics of the country. Therefore more than government, public should put
an effort on improving politics and electing the representative of the country.
For better understanding lets go through the election process of US and India.
This will help you to know where do we lack and how election is the backbone of
Democracy.
US
election process:
People often talk about US elections, it has been said
that US election is best form of democratic elections and also fair enough for
every citizen. US election has a long drawn process, it not only take weeks but
months. It is also most open form of election, as the candidates are directly
voted by the people. Therefore in India political parties elect its candidate,
which is in comparative to US is not democratic and fair. There are four steps
in which process go through:
Primaries- in this preceding people elect their candidate.
Which starts in January though the main elections are held in November.
The
convention- The main goal of a national party convention is to unify party members
behind the party's platform and nominees. Thousands of delegates gather to
rally support for the platform and to nominate candidates for president and
vice-president.
The campaign- this is the shortest period of the process where
campaigning is done by massive amount of people through huge publicity which
are highly funded. The Most interesting part is that the debate between the
candidates while campaigning is televised world wide.
The election
day- The elections are always held on the first Tuesday succeeding the first
Monday in the month of November when the votes are counted and an initial
result is announced within 12 hours after closing of the polls followed by the
counting of the votes after which the whole process proceeds towards the
electoral college. Each state has a number of Electoral College members and the
candidate who wins the most votes in a particular state wins the state’s entire
bunch of Electoral College members. Finally, when a candidate gets the majority
of votes across states, the elections are over and then lastly, the electoral
college members votes for the president.
The
election process in India:
The Election Commission of India is an autonomous body
responsible for administering election processes, headed by The Chief Election
Commissioner of India. initially a voter’s list is prepared and voting cards
are made. The Indian states are geographically divided into 543 constituencies
representing each candidate, which then file nominations at the office. The Returning
Officer scrutinizes the nomination papers very carefully if dissatisfied; the
candidate is officially stopped from contesting election for six years. The
parties issue their Election Manifestoes, which is “a formal Statement of the
programme and objectives of a political party”. There are strict regulations,
which ensures that no party can exceed the required election expenses. The
parties and the candidates usually make use of these techniques in order to
carry their message to the voters by public meetings, rallies and advertisement
through media. Booth-wise counting was preferred for one more reason. Thus, the
candidate who obtains the highest number of votes is declared elected.
The power of purple rules:
After looking at
the election procedures of both the nations, I can firmly stand for India as
it’s a living example of free and fair elections having a multi-party system.
In US there is a two-party system which really don’t give people a lot of
choices which means that there are less number of candidates representing just
few sections of the society leading to restricted policies whereas on the other
hand India’s election procedure stands the true test of democracy, representing
almost every community and enforcing effecting policies for the same.
But is it ethical to take in account the election procedures of
the nation to determine a true democracy?
- Purna Agrawal
20153033
Good blog post.
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