Awareness of Voting Rights and Electoral Offences: A Non-Doctrinal Study

Indian democracy is based on the concept of the informed electorate. This non-dogmatic empirical study aims to assess citizen knowledge of their rights and electoral offenses, conducted using a questionnaire among 80 randomly chosen participants belonging to the urban, semi-urban, and rural population of Maharashtra. Based on a survey conducted during September–October 2025, an ironic contradiction becomes evident: although voter registration (91.25%) and participation in the election process (88.75%) are rather high, legal literacy is poor indeed. Just 1.25% of the interviewees knew what NOTA stands for; only 41.25% knew when the Model Code of Conduct starts operating; and 95% of people who witnessed an electoral offense did not report this fact to law enforcement agencies. Thus, the main hypothesis of this paper is confirmed, as there is undoubtedly a huge gap between the legal aspects of the electoral process in India and the level of public awareness.