From Ballot Boxes to EVMs: A History of Elections in India

Many observers in 1950 did not think India could run a free election at all. Most of its adult citizens could not read. It had few roads in the countryside, fewer telephones, and no experience of voting by everyone at once. It ran the election anyway.

The Election Commission

The Election Commission of India was established on 25 January 1950, a day before the Constitution came into force. Article 324 gives it the superintendence, direction and control of elections to Parliament, the state legislatures and the offices of President and Vice-President. Since 2011, 25 January has been observed as National Voters' Day.

The first Chief Election Commissioner was Sukumar Sen, a mathematician and civil servant from Bengal. His task was to register every adult citizen, draw constituencies, train officials and run a poll across a subcontinent.

The first general election, 1951 to 1952

Polling began on 25 October 1951 in Himachal Pradesh, where snow would close the passes in winter, and ended in February 1952. About 173 million people were on the rolls.

• 489 Lok Sabha seats were filled from 401 constituencies; some constituencies returned two or even three members, so that seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes could be filled.
• Because so many voters could not read, each candidate had a symbol and a separate ballot box marked with it. The voter dropped the paper into the box of their choice.
• Around 2.8 million women were initially struck off the rolls because they had registered as someone's wife or mother rather than by name. Sen insisted they register in their own names.
• Turnout was about 45 per cent.

The Congress won 364 seats and Nehru formed the first elected government. The world took notice: a democracy on this scale had never been attempted.

Indelible ink and the voter's finger

From the 1962 general election, voters have had their left forefinger marked with indelible ink to prevent double voting. The ink is made by a public sector company in Mysuru, Karnataka, and is exported to other democracies.

1967 to 1977: The end of one-party dominance

In 1967 the Congress lost power in several states for the first time. In 1971 Indira Gandhi won a large majority on the slogan "Garibi Hatao". After the Emergency of 1975 to 1977, elections were called in March 1977 and the Congress was defeated nationally for the first time. The Janata Party formed the first non-Congress government at the Centre, with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister. Voters had shown that they could remove a government that had suspended their rights.

Age 18 and the anti-defection law

The Constitution (Sixty-first Amendment) Act, 1988 lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. It applied from the 1989 general election and added tens of millions of young voters. Earlier, the Fifty-second Amendment of 1985 had added the Tenth Schedule, the anti-defection law, to stop legislators switching parties for office.

The Seshan years and the voter ID card

T. N. Seshan, Chief Election Commissioner from 1990 to 1996, made the Model Code of Conduct something parties feared. The code had begun as guidelines for the 1960 Kerala assembly election; Seshan enforced it, postponed polls where rules were broken and cracked down on campaign excess. The Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) was introduced in 1993.

Electronic voting machines

Electronic voting machines were first used in 1982, in some polling stations of the Paravur assembly constituency in Kerala. After legal challenges and a change in the law in 1988, their use expanded through the 1990s. The 2004 general election was the first held entirely on EVMs.

A VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) printer, which shows the voter a slip with their chosen candidate for a few seconds, was first used in the 2013 by-election at Noksen in Nagaland. Since the 2019 general election every polling station has had one, and a set number of VVPAT slips per constituency are counted against the machine totals.

NOTA

In September 2013, in People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India, the Supreme Court directed that voters be given the option to reject all candidates. None of the Above (NOTA) now appears as the last button on every EVM. It does not change the result, but it records dissent that used to go unseen.

2024: The largest election ever held

The 2024 Lok Sabha election ran in seven phases from 19 April to 1 June 2024. About 968 million people were registered, and around 642 million voted, a turnout of roughly 66 per cent. More than a million polling stations were set up, including one in the Gir forest for a single voter. The BJP won 240 seats and formed the government with its NDA allies.

Why your vote is recorded the way it is

Every safeguard in this story, the symbol, the ink, the machine, the paper slip, exists because someone once tried to cheat or because some voter was at risk of being left out. The system works because people check it. Find your constituency and representatives here, and check your own entry on the electoral roll well before polling day.