• Rights & Responsibilities
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Rights & Responsibilities

Voters Rights
  • Right to recall an elected representative: To recall is to withdraw the mandate given to an elected official through an election. It is provided for in Sections 69 and 110 of the Constitution:
    • A petition signed by more than one-half of the persons registered to vote in that member's constituency, citing their loss of confidence in that member, should be presented to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. A referendum will then be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission within ninety days of the date of receipt of the petition and approved by a simple majority of the votes of the persons registered to vote in that member's constituency.
  • Right to privacy when voting: Voters have the right to mark their ballot papers in secret. The secret ballot system is another device to provide privacy during voting.
Voter Responsibilities

Ideally there are no rights without responsibilities. Responsibilities are those duties and activities, which the citizens of a state are expected to be involved in, to demonstrate their love, commitment, loyalty, patriotism and selflessness to the nation. A responsible citizen therefore always seeks to protect, defend and make numerous sacrifices for the advancement of the course of his or her country.

  1. Registar to vote
  2. To conduct oneself in an orderly manner while voting
  3. To obey electoral laws and regulations
  4. To document and report cases of electoral malpractices to the available law enforcement agencies (fraudulent manipulation of the electoral process like rigging, falsification of results, favouritism shown to a particular candidate or party, forgery)
  5. Where possible and safe, observe the counting of votes and announcement of results
Consequences of not voting

Non-voting may not bring out the desired result because the outcome is always based on the number that voted. For example, absenteeism or boycotting of an election does not count. If voters boycott an election, a candidate (who receives the majority votes) must still emerge a winner no matter how few the number of votes that candidate got. It may well be that if all voters had voted, another candidate may have won.

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