T D Achuthan went to vote at a school at 11am late last month. The 29-year-old resident of Chennai in Tamil Nadu was hoping to avoid long queues that typically form at polling sites later in the day, and the exposure to heat that comes with them.
When he arrived, there were at least 60 people in line, only a third of whom could fit into the shaded corridor. “The rest of us were in an open ground without tree cover and it was a gruelling experience,” says Achuthan.
Editor’s note
Part 1 of this series on heat and democracy looked at the dangers of campaigning for votes when temperatures soar , while many say India is in denial about the problem. Here in Part 2, we examine what happens on polling day itself.
Several Indian states concluded elections this month. In Chennai, the heat proved punishing for some voters.
Achuthan ended up waiting two hours to vote, one of which was spent baking under the sun. “It was an extremely exhausting experience,” he says. “I had to come back and sleep for a few hours to recover. Despite that, I felt dehydrated.”
As climate change drives temperatures and health risks ever higher, concern is growing that heat is harming suffrage as well as people’s health.
Polling booth officials at a site in Chennai told Dialogue Earth that tents were only erected in sites with more than five voting booths.
Between March and 25 July 2024, which included the campaigning and voting period for India’s last general elections, extreme heat led to over 370 confirmed deaths, according to official numbers some experts say are underestimates. In Uttar Pradesh alone, at least 33 polling staff died on the final day of voting due to intense heat.
On 24 April 2024, India’s minister of road transport, Nitin Gadkari, fainted on stage while addressing an election rally in western Maharashtra state. Shortly after recovering, he posted an update on X saying that he had felt “uncomfortable due to the heat”. Despite the rally occurring at 4.30pm, past the time afternoon temperatures normally peak, the temperature at his campaign site that day was 38C.
The general elections that year saw a voter turnout of 65.8% – a small but significant dip from the 2019 election, where turnout was 67.4%.
India’s capital New Delhi faced the lowest turnout in a decade, while Kerala’s turnout in 2024 was the lowest in the last 25 years. The chief electoral officer of Kerala, Sanjay Paul, told the News Minute that multiple voting sites saw huge turnout after 3pm, with people likely delaying voting due to intense heat. The outlet quoted an assistant returning officer as saying that long queues in the morning meant some people went home and, to avoid the heat, never returned to cast their vote.
There are many factors influencing the elections which took place over the last few weeks, and even before the votes were cast heat was already shaping campaigns .
“We need to urgently study how heat affects voter turnout. Summer elections are going to get increasingly challenging and will adversely impact voters and everyone involved,” says Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads on climate resilience and health at NRDC India, a company which advises on climate issues.
Hitting the most vulnerable
Heat exposure causes fatigue, cognitive impairment and cardiovascular strain, and with city temperatures higher due to the urban heat island effect, many workers struggle to recover after they finish gruelling shifts. What is the urban heat island effect? Cities are often warmer than the countryside that surrounds them due to a combination of factors: there are typically fewer trees to provide shade and cooling; a greater number of concrete and brick buildings, which can absorb heat; and more energy use, which produces waste heat. The result is known as the urban heat island effect.
“By the time election day arrives, many workers are already physiologically depleted. Asking them to then stand in long queues in the open sun for hours can tip the balance into genuine health risk,” says Apekshita Varshney, founder of the non-profit HeatWatch. Recommended This impact is likely to be felt disproportionately among the disadvantaged, and may lead to them choosing not to vote, she fears.
“We acknowledge the fact that heat can be quite crippling,” says an Indian election commission official who did not want to be named. They said there are “assured minimum facilities” at every polling station, including adequate shade, and that polling is supposed to open early and go on until 6pm to facilitate voting before and after rather than during peak heat.
A global issue
Between 2022 and 2025, at least 10 elections were affected by heatwaves in eight countries, according to a recent report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. They were the US, Mexico, Spain, France, Romania, India, the Maldives and the Philippines.
In the Philippines in May 2025, a heatwave drove temperatures to dangerous levels during that country’s general election. At some polling stations, voting machines reportedly malfunctioned due to the hot weather, causing delays that exposed voters to even more heat.
During the run up to Mexico’s 2024 general election, temperatures hit 50C in some parts of the country, with scores of deaths attributed to heat. Recommended The US holds its federal elections in November. Even there, high temperatures have been causing problems in politics. In 2024, 11 people were sent to hospital for heat-related issues while waiting to enter an indoor campaign rally in Arizona where President Donald Trump was speaking.
And on 24 June 2025, temperatures at John F Kennedy Airport in New York City reached 102F (39C), making it the site’s hottest June day on record. The city’s vulnerable people including the elderly and chronically ill were cautioned to stay inside. It was the day of voting for the Democratic party mayoral candidate, who was widely expected to go on to be crowned mayor.
The city’s board of elections pledged to install fans and supply water at the polls. But Democratic politicians Gregory Meeks and Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn issued a joint statement four days before the primary stating that “the NYC Board of Elections is not equipped to handle the heat wave”.
The NYC Board of Elections was contacted for comment but did not respond.
Solutions in sight
Experts say heat safety on election day comes down to three things: voting hours that allow peak heat to be avoided; crowd management that avoids people waiting in the sun; and polling booth infrastructure that prevents heat stress.
This could include evaporative coolers, fans and shaded outdoor areas, as well as fast lanes for vulnerable voters such as the elderly. In Chennai, provisions were made for elderly and disabled voters to cast their vote without waiting in line, several voters told Dialogue Earth. Voters queue at a polling station in Baruipur, West Bengal, in 2019 (Image: SOPA Images / Alamy) Closing polls at 6pm, as India does, may not be sustainable on a warming planet, some say.
“It is clear from past voting patterns that crowds are highest before 10am and after 3pm. Given the nature of heat, it would be wise to change the timings of voting, allowing people to vote till 9pm instead of 6pm,” says Rajesh K, a researcher at the Integrated Rural Technology Center in Kerala.
A more radical option is to shift when the elections happen to ensure heat is avoided.
General elections in India often fall in the hot months of April, May and June. The primary reason is that the terms of the lower house and state legislatures frequently expire in May or early June, meaning elections are scheduled for the preceding weeks. The monsoon season from June to September is avoided for elections and campaigns as heavy rains can disrupt voting and make large areas inaccessible.
The Election Commission of India says the power to make such a change does not lie with them.
“We don’t have the luxury to tinker with these dates. Any change will need a higher level of decision making,” says the Indian election commission official. This might involve taking up the issue in parliament and passing legislation on it, says former chief election commissioner T S Krishnamurthy.
A shift to winter elections would bring its own institutional challenges, including the availability of teaching staff who constitute a large portion of election duty workers. But as heatwaves’ frequency, intensity and duration rise, conducting elections in the summer is increasingly being seen as a public health risk.
“Even a decade ago, heat was never considered a disruptive factor to the voting turnout. But we can no longer ignore its impact,” says Krishnamurthy.
He wants political parties to engage with the problem and the election commission to raise it as something that must be taken seriously. “Elections can be held between January and April. But this adjustment must be made through all-party consensus [and] legislative change,” he says.
While the debates about shifting long-standing election timetables to accommodate the changing world continue, more rapid responses may be needed to keep people safe in the meantime. Responses that recognise the threat heat has become, and ensure everyone is able to vote safely.
“We already have provisions for election postponement due to security concerns or natural disasters,” says Varshney. “Extreme heat, which is now a declared disaster in multiple states, should qualify on the same basis.” This article is a collaboration between The Xylom and Dialogue Earth. The post Democracy meets extreme heat: The end of summer elections? appeared first on Dialogue Earth .