Empowerment Of Citizens Through Direct Voting

Direct voting is also known as pure voting. In those democracies in which direct voting is applied, all the laws and policies imposed by government are determined by the people themselves rather than by the representatives elected by the people. This kind of voting actually empowers the citizens to select the rules and policies which according to them will be beneficial for their well-being. Sometimes even if you elect a good representative he may have difficulty in prioritizing the needs of the citizens. But in this kind of voting system this confusion would be solved by the citizens. Now the question arises how direct voting could be done? The simple answer would be through online voting platform developed by Right2vote Infotech.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIRECT AND REPRESENTATIVE VOTING

• In representative democracy, people elect a representative who create laws and in direct democracy citizens create laws and this would be possible only through service.
• Representative democracy works on federal system of checks and balances whereas e-voting direct democracy works on ballot initiatives and binding referendums and recall of elected officials.
• In the representative form, people vote only for electing the representative whereas in direct voting system people can vote on every major issues of government even the verdict of every court case is determined by votes of all citizens.

PROS OF DIRECT VOTING SYSTEM

No other forms of voting system ensure such greater degree of openness and transparency between the citizens and the government. All the discussions and debates are held publically and every citizen has the right to express their individual opinion on that matter. It is not at all easy to have direct democracy or implement direct voting system in countries with such a huge population. Most importantly this can’t be done through the booth based voting system; you have to depend completely on e-voting services for that.

Moreover, all success and failures of the country will be credited to or blamed on the citizens rather than the Government. The direct voting system eliminates the interest of the political parties. On the part of the government, direct democracy demands huge amount of accountability. It could be assumed that it is more likely that people will be happy with the laws that they have created themselves. The only thing that is needed in part of citizen is that they actively participate in important decisions of the government because they know that their decision will make a difference.

Naturally, this kind of direct voting system empowers each and every citizen of a country. Switzerland is an example of a country which has adopted direct voting system successfully. But it would be very difficult for countries like India to implement this kind of voting system because of huge population. This could be possible only when voting & polling is done through online polling platform. This kind of voting not only empowers the citizens but it will play a vital role in the growth and development of a country.