Time for poll bodies to devise own integrity indices: chief election commissioner

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said on Friday that it was time for election management bodies to devise their own election integrity indices, claiming that some were based on media reports and social media discourse instead of hard facts, The Indian Express reported.

An election management body is legally responsible for managing some or all of the essential elements of an election in a region or a country.

Several global and independent agencies express the strength and credibility of democracies and the electoral processes of countries through indices that are based on several parameters including transparency and accountability.

Among them, the Democracy Index published by The Economist and reports by the Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy Institute have highlighted a decline in India’s position over the past decade.

India has also repeatedly ranked low in the index published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

“Measuring democracy is certainly a worthwhile job and has its uses,” The Indian Express quoted Kumar as saying after an international conference of election management bodies hosted by the Election Commission.

Those who measure democratic indices need to be rational and transparent in their assessment, Kumar added.

“There is an opaqueness in the indices which are used,” the newspaper quoted Kumar as saying. “While so many other considerations can be subjective in interpretation, an election is possibly a…

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