Reaching every voter

Democracy works best when every eligible citizen can take part freely and fairly. In India, that aim meets a problem of sheer size.

Two comparisons make it real. India's eligible voters number fifteen times the whole population of the United Kingdom. In area, India is six times larger than France.

And geography adds its own difficulties: mountains, deserts, islands, forests.

The Election Commission of India organises all this, and has taken new steps so that no voter is left behind.

Election officials travel to faraway places. The chapter's most striking example is a polling station set up for a single woman voter: one person, one full polling station, because the right to vote is not reduced just because it is inconvenient.

In 2024, for the first time, the elderly and people with disabilities could vote from home, and postal voting was available for a specific category of voters.

Helpful technology was added too: braille-enabled voter cards, and app-based requests for help, including wheelchairs and ramps.

But the chapter does not just praise. About 34 per cent of eligible voters did not vote in 2024: roughly one in three. And it reminds us that fairness is an old concern: the Uttaramerur inscriptions from the 10th century describe an open way of choosing representatives, with names on palm leaves drawn from a sealed pot in public by a young boy, and read out by a respected person who first showed his empty hands to the crowd.