Bar Council Polls: 40% Invalid Votes Spark Outrage

Hyderabad: About 200 of the 500 votes cast for the Telangana Bar Council elections were reportedly invalid for containing basic errors by advocates who cast the ballots. Counting was taken up on Tuesday for the polling held on January 30 for the election of 23 members to the Bar Council of Telangana. It may be noted that the votes have not been officially declared invalid so far by the election observers.

As per the instructions issued by the Bar Council, the voters — all advocates — were required to record their preference by writing the words “ONE”, “TWO”, “THREE” and so on, in capital letters, corresponding to their choice of candidates up to a maximum of 23 preferences. Minimum preferences must be up to five. A large number of advocates failed to comply with these directions.

Out of nearly 500 votes counted from the Telangana High Court centre alone, more than 200 ballots were reportedly rejected solely on the ground that the preferences were either written incorrectly, not written in capital letters, or contained spelling mistakes. In several cases, the words “ONE”, “TWO” and “THREE” were misspelled, rendering the ballots invalid under the applicable election rules. The confirmation has to be given by the observers of the elections.

This has invited sharp criticism from within the legal fraternity as well as from outside, expressing dismay that advocates who claim they are practicing at the High Court had failed to follow basic voting instructions. Some remarked that the errors were so elementary that even a school student could have avoided them, and questioned the seriousness with which the election process was treated.

Observers noted that the large-scale invalidation of votes due to avoidable mistakes may affect the expectations of the contested candidates.