How the President of India is elected: the electoral college and the value of a vote

Article 54 says the President is elected by an electoral college of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States. The Constitution says that for this purpose "State" includes the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry, so their MLAs vote too.

• Nominated members of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and State Assemblies are not in the college.
• Members of State Legislative Councils are not electors either.
• Parties cannot issue a whip to their members for this vote, according to the Election Commission.

Article 55 aims at uniformity in the scale of representation of the different States, and parity between the States as a whole and the Union. So each elector's vote is given a value, and a ballot counts as that many votes. The value for an MLA depends on the State's population and the size of its Assembly. The value for an MP is then set so that MPs as a group carry the same total weight as all the MLAs.

The population used is not the latest census. The Constitution (Eighty-fourth) Amendment Act, 2001 provides that until figures for the first census taken after 2026 are published, the 1971 census is used. The values are recalculated for each election because the number of elected members changes. The MP value was 708 in 2017 and 700 in 2022 (as reported by PRS India); Jammu and Kashmir had no Assembly in 2022 and so had no MLA votes in the college.

Under Article 58 a candidate must be a citizen of India, have completed 35 years of age, and be qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha. A person holding an office of profit under the Union, a State or a government-controlled local authority is not eligible, except that the President, Vice-President, a Governor or a Union or State minister is not treated as holding one. A sitting President can stand again (Article 57). A member of Parliament or of a State legislature who is elected President is deemed to have vacated the seat on taking office (Article 59).

The deposit is forfeited if the candidate loses and gets no more than one-sixth of the votes needed to win. The Returning Officer is the Secretary General of the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha by rotation; in 2022 it was the Rajya Sabha's.

The ballot is secret and carries no symbols. The elector writes 1 against a first choice and may mark further preferences in figures, not words. Only the first preference is compulsory, and a ballot without a 1 is invalid. The Commission supplies a special pen, and using another pen invalidates the vote. MPs vote in Parliament House and MLAs in their own Assembly buildings.

If all 10,86,431 votes in 2022 had been valid, the quota would have been 5,43,216 (PRS India). The actual quota depends on the valid votes polled. If only one candidate is validly nominated after withdrawals, the Returning Officer declares that person elected without a poll (section 8).

The President serves five years from entering office (Article 56) and stays on until a successor takes charge. An election for an ending term must be completed before it expires (Article 62(1)). If the office falls vacant by death, resignation, removal or otherwise, an election must be held as soon as possible and no later than six months after the vacancy (Article 62(2)). Meanwhile the Vice-President acts as President (Article 65). If both offices are vacant, the Chief Justice of India, or the senior-most available Supreme Court judge, discharges the functions under the President (Discharge of Functions) Act, 1969.

Under Article 71, all doubts and disputes about the election are decided by the Supreme Court, and its decision is final. An election petition must be presented within 30 days of the declaration, by a candidate or by 20 or more electors together. The election cannot be challenged merely because a seat in the electoral college is vacant. If the Court declares an election void, acts done by the person before the decision remain valid. By our own calculation (not an official announcement), the term that began after the July 2022 election runs to about July 2027, so the next ordinary election must be completed before then under Article 62(1); we have not seen an announced date.