“Write short note: Merits and demerits of secret ballot in democracy.” (1992)
The secret ballot lets a voter record a choice in private, so that no one can link a particular vote to a particular voter. It was first adopted in the Australian colonies of Victoria and South Australia in 1856, hence the name “Australian ballot”, and in Britain through the Ballot Act of 1872. It is now a universal democratic norm under Article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In India, Sections 94 and 128 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 protect it. Sociologically, it detaches the vote from social relations of dependence and makes the individual, not the community, the unit of political choice.
Merits
- Freedom from coercion. Voters are shielded from landlords, employers, dominant castes, clergy and even household heads. For Dalit agricultural labourers voting against their employer’s candidate, secrecy is the precondition of choice.
- Weakens vote-buying. A buyer cannot check whether the bribe produced a vote. Studies of clientelism, such as Susan C. Stokes’, show that brokers then have to rely on community monitoring, which secrecy weakens.
- Political equality. Every vote counts equally, which expresses the principle of “one person, one vote, one value”.
- Protection from reprisal. Secrecy limits retaliation after elections against minorities and dissenters.
- Legitimacy. Results seen as the free will of citizens are more readily accepted. In PUCL v. Union of India (2013) the Supreme Court held secrecy to be part of the freedom of expression and required the NOTA option, so that even rejecting all candidates stays secret.
Demerits
- Lack of accountability. John Stuart Mill (Considerations on Representative Government, 1861) opposed the secret ballot. He argued that the vote is a public trust and that open voting makes voters answer for their choice to the community.
- Secrecy can be broken in practice. Booth-wise results, published as Form 20, let parties work out how a village or caste voted and reward or punish it collectively. This is why a totaliser that mixes votes from several booths before counting has been proposed.
- Assisted voting. Illiterate or elderly voters and women under patriarchal control may be “helped” by relatives or agents, so secrecy exists on paper only.
- Cross-voting in legislatures. When representatives vote secretly they may be bought. In Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India (2006) the Supreme Court upheld open ballots in Rajya Sabha elections to curb horse-trading. For representatives, transparency serves democracy better than secrecy.
- Trust in verification. Because votes are secret, citizens cannot check that their own vote was counted. This fuels EVM controversies, although in April 2024 the Supreme Court rejected a return to paper ballots and upheld EVM-VVPAT verification.
- Secrecy beyond the voter. Anonymous electoral bonds showed secrecy protecting donors. The Supreme Court struck the scheme down in February 2024, holding that voters have a right to know about political funding.
Conclusion
The secret ballot’s merits outweigh its demerits for ordinary citizens, especially in hierarchical societies like India, where open voting would let traditional dominance continue under democratic form. Mill’s concern for accountability applies better to those who hold power: legislators, parties and donors. Democracy therefore needs secrecy for the voter and transparency for the powerful.