Election of the President

Let's check out the election process of the President of India.

The President of India is elected, whenever the office becomes vacant, by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of the Parliament and the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies (Vidhan Sabha). The election uses the single transferable vote method of proportional representation. Voting takes place by secret ballot.

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Each elector casts a different number of votes. The general principle is that the total number of votes cast by Members of Parliament equals the total number of votes cast by state Legislators. Also, legislators from larger states cast more votes than those from smaller states. Finally, the number of legislators in a state matters; if a state has a few legislators, then each legislator has relatively more votes; if a state has many legislators, then each legislator has fewer votes.

The actual calculation for votes cast by a particular state is calculated by dividing the state's population by 1000, which is divided again by the number of legislators from the state voting in the electoral college. This number is the number of votes per legislator in a given state. For votes cast by those in Parliament, the total number of votes cast by all state legislators is divided by the number of members of both Houses of Parliament. This is the number of votes per member of either house of Parliament.

The President is elected for a five year term. The salary of the President is Rs 50,000 per month and his emoluments cannot be reduced during his term of office.