IN THE POLLING MACHINE
THERE IS ALSO A BUTTON TO VOTE “AGAINST”
Photography by Avani Tanya
It is called NOTA and it’s one of the novelties in these Indian elections. For the first time the polling machine, the electronic device with the symbols of the candidates for which you vote with just a touch of a button, offers an extra possibility: a vote “for none of these” or rather, a vote against everyone.
It’s an opportunity to express political judgements differently from the usual blank and/or null card, and is the result of introducing technology into the polling station. There are great expectations and everyone is wondering about the percentage of electors who will press the NOTA button (the acronym for None Of The Above), while the media wait eagerly for public opinion’s judgement on the discredit into which the Indian political class have fallen.
