Does your vote count if election results are already out?

It was the last phase of this round of assembly elections and on Monday, May 16, 2016, of the 234 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu, 232 went to polls. Voters in the two remaining constituencies, though, will only be able to cast their votes a good four days after a clear idea emerges of who is going to form the next government in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. Following seizure of large amounts of cash and complaints of voters being bribed, the Election Commission postponed polling – first in Aravakurichi, then in Thanjavur – to Monday, May 23, with results on Wednesday, May 25.

Except by 1pm on May 19, the results will be out for every other constituency in Tamil Nadu.

What this essentially means is the electorate in these two constituencies will go into the polling booth with full knowledge of the party that other voters in Tamil Nadu have opted for. In effect, the results of the other 232 assembly constituencies of the state becomes an opinion poll – a rather definitive one at that – for voters in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur.

The decision to postpone the polls was meant to show that the Election Commission will “not sit idle if you go about distributing money,” Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat told Newslaundry over the phone. “The idea was to issue a deterrent to others who might be planning to do something similar.” Asked why voting was not postponed to a date between May 16 and May 19, he said, “The basis of postponement was to reduce the intensity of the allurements.”

This is not the first time that elections have been deferred. During the 1999 general elections, voting in six constituencies of Bihar was shifted to a later date due to unexpected late rains. While two voted in a later phase, four – Purnea, Rajmahal, Bhagalpur and Khagaria – did so after the results of the rest of the country had been declared.

Back then, though, there was no law in place that restricted the publication and dissemination of exit polls. According to Section 126A of the Representation of the People Act, conducting or publicising any exit polls until “half an hour after closing of the poll in all the States and Union territories” is “punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with fine or with both”. The reasoning behind this is that the part of the electorate that is yet to cast their vote might get influenced and vote accordingly. As far as Aravakurichi and Thanjavur are concerned, this section has already been violated yesterday, when all the private news channels had programmes announcing exit poll predictions.

Knowing the results can be as much of an influence as money, with voters potentially backing a candidate whose party is all set to form the government so that their constituency is not neglected by the state capital. In case of the two constituencies in Tamil Nadu, the Election Commission had a choice – let electoral malpractice be or risk the voter getting influenced by the results. The commission went with the latter. “After much deliberation, it was felt that the results might be a lesser influence than the influence of money,” said Rawat.

With the exit polls predicting a neck-to-neck contest on May 19, voters of Aravakurichi and Thanjavur could be the ones who decide which party will form the next state government. The commission was more than willing to take that chance. “In case that happens, it will only serve the purpose of democracy,” said Rawat. “It will strengthen democracy rather than erode democracy. Voters (in the two constituencies) will be supreme. They will get to decide who forms the next government, and it will not be on the basis of money.”