Explained: How is the President of India elected?

As the tenure of the current President Ram Nath Kovind ends on July 24, the Election Commission of India announced on Thursday the dates for the 16th Presidential elections. The polling for the new Indian President will be held on July 18. The result will be declared on July 21.

The process of electing the President in India is not like that of some other democracies, say the United States. We break down the process of electing the President of India: who can vote, the voting procedure, and other mechanisms involved.

Who can take part in the voting process?

Article 54 of the Indian Constitution explains the provisions for the voters who can participate in the election of the President. It states that the President of India can only be elected by the members of an electoral college, which includes the MPs of both Houses of the Parliament, and the elected member of Legislative Assemblies of all states, including Delhi and Puducherry (both are UTs).

The term “elected member” clarifies that no member, who has been nominated to either house of the Parliament or the assemblies, can participate in the elections.

Similarly, Members of Legislative Councils of states cannot vote in Presidential elections either.

As Lok Sabha has two and Rajya Sabha has 12 nominated members, voters from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are 543 and 233, respectively, making it 776 voters from Parliament.

Additionally, the Members of Legislative Assemblies of all states, Delhi and Puducherry, amount to 4,033 voters—this takes the total number of members in the Presidential electoral college to 4,809.

Value of the voter, not the number of votes, matters

Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly have different values assigned to them. The value of an MP’s vote is fixed at 700—which is calculated by dividing the total value of votes of all the states and UTs by the total number of elected MPs. Since the total number of votes as per the ECI is 5,43,200 and the number of MPs is 776, the value of a vote for each MP is 700 (5,43,200/776).

The value was reduced from 708 after the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly was dissolved in 2018, which comprised 87 members having a total vote value of 6,264.

The value of an MLAs vote differs according to the state the MLA comes from.

The MLA’s vote value is dependent on the population of his/her state and the strength of that state’s Legislative Assembly.

To ensure uniformity here, there is a formula that is used to determine the value: the population of the state is divided by 1,000 times the strength of its Legislative Assembly.

However, the 84th Amendment of the Constitution has disallowed any change in constituency boundaries till the national census conducted after 2026 can be published. That will only happen once the census of 2031 is published.

This means the population which is undertaken for this process is based on the 1971 census. For example, if we intend to calculate the value of vote that an MLA from Karnataka will have, we use Karnataka’s population data from the 1971 census which was 29,299,014, and the strength of the Karnataka Assembly which stands at 224.

Therefore, the value would be 29,299,014 divided (224 x 100), which equals 130.7, rounding it off to 131. Hence, a Karnataka MLA’s vote will have a value of 131.

Presently, at 208, MLAs from Uttar Pradesh have the highest value assigned to their votes, while Sikkim has the lowest, which stands at seven.

How did J&K affect the vote value?

Before it was reorganised into forming a Union Territory in 2019, the erstwhile state of J&K had an 87-member Assembly. However, after Article 370 was revoked, the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act stated that while Ladakh will be administered by the Centre, J&K will have a Legislative Assembly, the election to which would have been announced after the delimitation of the constituencies.

In its final order, the Delimitation Commission for Jammu and Kashmir recommended a 90-member assembly for the region. However, since an elected house is yet to be in place, J&K will not be eligible to take part in the voting for the Presidential elections.

As per the Election Commission’s data released on Thursday, the total value of votes of the MPs is 5,43,200 while that of MLAs is 5,43,231 thereby taking the total sum to 10,86,431.

States and UTs	Number of MLAs	Population (1971 Census)	Value of Each Vote	Total Value
ANDHRA PRADESH	175	2,78,00,586	159	27,825
ARUNACHAL PRADESH	60	4,67,511	8	480
ASSAM	126	1,46,25,152	116	14,616
BIHAR	243	4,21,26,236	173	42,039
CHHATTISGARH	90	1,16,37,494	129	11,610
GOA	40	7,95,120	20	800
GUJARAT	182	2,66,97,475	147	26,754
HARYANA	90	1,00,36,808	112	10,080
HIMACHAL PRADESH	68	34,60,434	51	3,468
JHARKHAND	81	1,42,27,133	176	14,256
KARNATAKA	224	2,92,99,014	131	29,344
KERALA	140	2,13,47,375	152	21,280
MADHYA PRADESH	230	3,00,16,625	131	30,130
MAHARASHTRA	288	5,04,12,235	175	50,400
MANIPUR	60	10,72,753	18	1,080
MEGHALAYA	60	10,11,699	17	1,020
MIZORAM	40	3,32,390	8	320
NAGALAND	60	5,16,449	9	540
ODISHA	147	2,19,44,615	149	21,903
PUNJAB	117	1,35,51,060	116	13,572
RAJASTHAN	200	2,57,65,806	129	25,800
SIKKIM	32	2,09,843	7	224
TAMIL NADU	234	4,11,99,168	176	41,184
TELANGANA	119	1,57,02,122	132	15,708
TRIPURA	60	15,56,342	26	1,560
UTTARAKHAND	70	44,91,239	64	4,480
UTTAR PRADESH	403	8,38,49,905	208	83,824
WEST BENGAL	294	4,43,12,011	151	44,394
NCT OF DELHI	70	40,65,698	58	4,060
PUDUCHERRY	30	4,71,707	16	480
TOTAL	4,033	54,93,02,005		5,43,231

The voting procedure

Like the Rajya Sabha elections, the presidential elections, too, follow the system of a single transferable vote and are based on the principle of proportional representation.

The principle of a single transferable vote allows voters to choose any number of candidates in order of preference. For example, if 10 candidates are contesting the election, the voters can mark them as 1,2,3,4, and so on, based on their choice.

The ballot paper which is provided to the voters does not contain symbols of any political parties, and there are two columns present on it. The first column contains the name of the candidates contesting the election, while the second column has the order of preference. The voters can mark their preferences in the space provided next to the name of the candidates.

The candidate securing the maximum number of first preference votes is declared the winner.

As per its latest announcement, the Election Commission has stated that voters will have to use the pen that will be provided by the EC for marking the preference, and alteration to this will nullify the voter’s ballot paper.