Podcast | You Have a Voting Option Which Rejects All Candidates

What happens when you press the NOTA button?

(Photo: The Quint)

Do you feel that in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, no candidate from your constituency is worth voting for? Have you lost hope in all of them and think they are corrupt? Are you eager to vote, yet want to send a stern warning to political parties? If these pre-poll questions are bothering you as a voter, then in this episode of Sadda Haq, we will explain how NOTA can come to your rescue.

NOTA stands for None of the Options, a button that is placed right at the bottom of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Every voter has the right to press this button, if he or she doesn’t like either of the candidates fielded by political parties in an election.

In the event of NOTA winning most of the votes, then the candidate with the second-highest number of votes will be declared winner. NOTA, therefore, so far as Assembly and Lok Sabha elections are concerned, does not lead to to re-election.

The purpose of NOTA, as spelt out by a 2013 Supreme Court judgment, is to ensure that political parties project clean candidates. The SC had also noted that the right to vote also included the right to reject a candidate.

Click here to read more about NOTA.