None of the above (India)
The NOTA option was first used in the 2013 legislative assembly elections held in four states—Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, and the union territory of Delhi.
The Supreme Court of India judgement said, We direct the Election Commission to provide necessary provision in the ballot papers/EVMs and another button called "None of the Above" (NOTA) may be provided in EVMs so that the voters, who come to the polling booth and decide not to vote for any of the candidates in the fray, are able to exercise their right not to vote while maintaining their right of secrecy.
The previous NOTA record-holder was Gopalganj, Bihar, in 2019, when 51,660 voters chose this option which is 5 percent of votes.
In the 2017 Gujarat Assembly Elections, the total vote share of NOTA was lesser only than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, and Independent Candidates.
[12] In the 2018 Karnataka Assembly Elections, NOTA polled more votes than some parties with a nation-wide presence such as CPI (M) and BSP.
[16] The power of NOTA to express dissent is clearly visible in reports where entire communities decided to democratically protest against governments that have failed to meet their needs.
For instance, there have been multiple cases of entire villages deciding to vote for NOTA due to consistent failure of local governments to meet basic requirements like roads, electricity,[17][18] inaction towards villagers' complaints about water contamination by industries,[19] and even reports of sex workers who have been pushing for legalisation of their profession to get themselves covered under labour laws, but have received no government attention, deciding to go for NOTA.
However, while passing the NOTA ruling, the Chief Justice of India, P. Sathasivam, was quoted as stating, Giving right to a voter not to vote for any candidate while protecting his right of secrecy is extremely important in a democracy.
This could be interpreted as a refusal of general category voters to vote for an SC/ST candidate[23] - a scenario where NOTA is being misused to uphold caste-based bias.
Thus, while NOTA is definitely providing a voice to dissent, it needs to be accompanied with efforts to raise voter awareness to prevent the misuse of this measure.
However, the Supreme Court responded to these PILs by stating that such a solution is unworkable and that "holding an election in our country is a very serious and expensive business".
It is only the desire to continue in power and the greed for money that take prominence over values.Section 79 (d) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, recognises "electoral right" to also include the right to "refrain from voting at an election".
