At least 25 second placed candidates in Tamil Nadu may have not been happy to see that the number of NOTA votes in their constituencies exceeded the margin of their defeat and NOTA has accounted for 1.3%, or 5,61,244 votes of the total votes polled in the State.
In the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, 5, 82,062 people, or 1.4% of the votes polled has exercised the NOTA option. NOTA were ahead of Naam Tamilar Katchi (1.1 %), MDMK (0.9), CPI (0.8), VCK (0.8), CPI (M) (0.7), IUML (0.7), Tamil Maanila Congress (0.5), and Puthiya Tamilagam (0.5).
N. Gopalaswami, former Chief Election Commissioner has told that in the era of ballot papers, a voter had the option to fold the paper without putting the seal if he or she did not want to vote for any candidate. The option to provide the NOTA button is to ensure the privacy of the voter and secrecy of the polling process.
Finally it makes no difference to the result even if the total number of NOTA votes is higher than the candidate with the highest number of votes.
