Providing migrants with voting rights

• Bihar, a state with one of India’s largest out-migration populations, has a low voter turnout rate of 56% in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

• The large migrant population, which is unable to return home to vote, likely influenced low voter turnout.

• In 2021, India’s overall migration rate was 28.9%, with a significant portion of migration for marriage, especially among women.

• With an increasing number of migrants travelling from poorer to richer areas, the number of those effectively disenfranchised will increase unless mechanisms are put in place to facilitate voting by migrants.

• The Election Commission of India (ECI) proposed a concrete proposal in 2024, but no single mechanism for voting for migrants has been implemented.

• Intra-State migrants (around 85% of migrants) working in the informal sector could be encouraged to travel shorter distances to vote in their original place of residence.

• Inter-State migrants working in the informal sector need a different set of voting mechanisms.

• Three possibilities for this section include remote electronic voting machines (RVMs), postal ballots, and switching voting constituencies.

• Each of these options has its advantages and disadvantages, and a mixed approach that uses all these options will enable a significant share of both inter- and intra-State salaried and casual migrants to exercise their right to vote.