India, April 9 -- India's thriving democracy is among the most significant and consequential achievements of the seven-decade-old republic. Despite crushing poverty and illiteracy, a young nation showed the world in 1951-52 that it could not only successfully value every citizen's vote equally but also establish a distinct model of elections across an incredibly diverse landscape. At the heart of this project was the Election Commission of India (ECI), acting as a bulwark in expanding the franchise, helping people who had never imagined themselves as electors before to pick their representatives, and building a level-playing field in a country riven by inequalities and structural problems such as caste. If India's democracy has grown deep...