Sri Lanka just wrapped up a historic election with the Presidential Election to pick the 9th Executive President ending last Sunday (22). However, with the General Election on the horizon and other elections likely to follow, concerns about voter-turnout and the lack of awareness about preferential voting is growing.

According to the Commissioner General of Elections Saman Sri Ratnayake over 3,500,000 Sri Lankan citizens who are eligible to vote, did not not cast their votes during the 2024 Presidential Election held last weekend. This is a significant concern as the number accounts for 21.54% of the population from those that are eligible to cast their vote according to the Elections Commission. This, as historically Presidential Election voter turnout peaked at 80%. To put the issue in context, Sri Lanka has had low voter turnout before. However, this recent Presidential Election saw significant public interest with many youth moved to consider voting, given the political instability of 2022 where mass public protest, much of it youth driven, saw Sri Lanka oust an elected president for the first time. As such, the fact that there were 21.5% of voters who were eligible to vote and did not, is a troubling development. According to Commissioner General Ratnayake out of the 17,140,354 registered voters, a total of 13,619,916 have cast their votes in the Presidential Election which is 79.46%, while 3,520,438 (21.54%) did not vote. Why was voter mobilisation less than before? Ratnayake opined that, “Usually in Presidential Elections, the percentage of votes cast is more than 80%. But, this time, a fewer number of votes have been used. For this, we have to think not only from the side of the Election Commission, but that the political parties have the role of bringing the people to the polling stations in order to cast votes. We provide that necessary facility. We request the political parties to prepare some sort of programme for that”.

One reason could be the large number of Sri Lankan who left the island seeking foreign employment, or due to the spike in migration overseas. However, the number does not quite fit that possibility, which has led some observers to consider that there is a segment of the population that has given up on voting. This, in a democracy, is cause for concern. Citizens involvement in governance and change comes primarily via voting, and for nearly 21.5% of eligible voters not to be involved in the process is not healthy for a functional democracy. 

Meanwhile, according to Ratnayake approximately 300,300 (2.2%) votes were rejected. Here again many votes had been rejected due to many voters being confused or unaware of how the preferential votes can be marked on the ballot paper. While the preferential voting system has been a problem throughout history, the lack of voter education or awareness is telling when one considers the number of votes that have been rejected on such issues.

The matter had also caught the eye of the Commonwealth Election observers who pointed out a lack of voter education when it came to the preferential voting system followed at the Election held on Saturday (21). “We have noted that there is a need for greater voter education, including dedicated educational programmes demonstrating the preferential voting system, which led to confusion about how the system works and how voters cast their ballots in order of preference,” the Chair of the Commonwealth Observer Group and the former President of Seychelles, Danny Faure, said addressing the press yesterday (23). Faure responded to a question by The Daily Morning stating that the main cause for a large number of invalid votes is due to poor voter education on the voting process. “We will address this in detail later but the issue of invalid votes is mainly due to a lack of voter education on the process of voting”.

As such, Sri Lankan citizens and its polity need to recognise this issue and move to improve voter education, which is important for a healthy democracy.