The political history of Pakistan has been evidently plagued with mismanagement, instability, corruption and bad governance. The masses have experienced a revolving chair of the leaders who failed to deliver and meet the expectations, leading to a sense of disappointment among the people.
Despite the availability of capable and honest people in the country, inefficient and incapable representatives and leadership, with a very few exceptions, are still being elected.
One of the key reasons for the election of incompetent and corrupt representatives in the country is the lack of education and political cognizance among the voters. A large portion of the populace is illiterate and lacks the necessary awareness and understanding to make informed decisions about their political representatives, causing a major hurdle in electing capable and honest leaders. The voters are often driven by prejudice or bias and are usually swayed by emotional appeals and empty promises made by politicians during election campaigns.
In the aforementioned situation of illiteracy, low level of education, lack of political awareness and analytics skills of the voters, the principle of ‘one-man, one-vote’ doesn’t seem suitable for Pakistan.
The principle of ‘one-man, one-vote’ has generally led to the election of leaders lacking the competence, knowledge and expertise needed to effectively govern the country. In this system, each person, after reaching the age of 18 years in Pakistan, is granted with vote to cast, regardless of his education level, age, political awareness, experience, analytical skills and roles and responsibilities. But, on the other hand, in general, it is an established fact that an illiterate cannot be equated with a voter having qualification of PhD as far as the political wit of both is concerned. Similarly, political wisdom of voters aged 18 years cannot be compared with those having the age, for example, 50 years, or more. Likewise, it will not be wise and justified to keep the weightage the same of the voters who do comply with various state responsibilities, rules and regulations with those who don’t.
Therefore, besides other electoral reforms widely discussed and suggested time and again at various forums, instead of ‘one-person, one-vote’, a weighted voting system, in which each voter has a variable voting power, should be adopted. Weighted voting is a voting system that gives different weights to different voters based on a predetermined set of criteria, for example, education, age, experience and compliance of the state rules and regulations and so on.
An illiterate should have only one vote, while a voter with matriculation and intermediate may have two votes, 14-year graduates and the voters with a 16-year educational qualification should have three votes; while the voter having MPhil/MS or PhD degrees should have four.
As far as the age is concerned, the voter from the age of 18 to 25 years may be given the right of only one (1) vote, while the citizens of the age group 26-35 and 36-49 years may have two and three votes votes, respectively; whereas the voters having the age of 50 and above should be powered with four votes.
Similarly, amounts of various types of taxes paid by the citizens should also be made one of the criteria, making the voters eligible for the additional votes ranging from one to four. Those, who don’t pay, should be deprived of any additional vote in this regard, while those who pay the taxes up to Rs 0.5 million may be given two; whereas those who pay the taxes in the range of Rs 0.51-Rs 2.0 million should additionally be given three votes; whereas those, who pay more than Rs 2.0 million should be equipped with four additional votes.
The weighted voting model is much better than the ‘one-man, one-vote’ system as it takes into account the knowledge, expertise and contribution of the individuals. The ‘one-man, one-vote’ rule apparently seems fair and democratic, but it usually leads to uninformed decisions being made, leading to negative consequences for the country. Therefore, it is important to consider implementing a weighted voting system to ensure that decisions are made in the best interest of the state and the people for the election of honest and competent political leadership capable of pulling the country out of the prevailing issues of economy, unemployment, poverty and poor governance in Pakistan.
Now, suppose an MPhil-qualified 50-year-old voter pays Rs 0.5 million as taxes. It is suggested he be armed with 10 votes – four votes for his education, four votes for his age, and two votes for the amount of taxes he pays.
A few other factors, like criminal history, earning of foreign remittances for the country, community services, international exposure and analytical skills may also be made a part of this weighted voting system.
The counting of votes is proposed to be automated as and when the vote will be cast by the pertinent voter on Internet-based electronic voting machine (EVM) connected with the data of NADRA for the age, the HEC and the boards of intermediate and secondary education for educational qualification, FBR for tax and other remittances information, Ministry of Interior for criminal history and local municipalities for the community services. Special tests may be conducted for gauging the analytical skills of those voters who are interested to get further additional voting power. The relevant data may be fed with the voter’s identity if the live Internet connection with the EVMs is not possible everywhere.
The weighted voting model is much better than the ‘one-man, one-vote’ system as it takes into account the knowledge, expertise and contribution of the individuals. The ‘one-man, one-vote’ rule apparently seems fair and democratic, but it usually leads to uninformed decisions being made, leading to negative consequences for the country. Therefore, it is important to consider implementing a weighted voting system to ensure that decisions are made in the best interest of the state and the people for the election of honest and competent political leadership capable of pulling the country out of the prevailing issues of economy, unemployment, poverty and poor governance in Pakistan.
