ELECTRONIC
VOTING MACHINE (EVM) - POLITY
News: Election
Commission should clarify doubts on EVMs, say Opposition parties
What's in the news?
● With
a little more than a year to go for the next general elections, the Opposition
parties have decided to come together to draft a joint memorandum asking the
Election Commission to settle the questions raised over the credibility of
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
Electronic Voting Machines:
● An
Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is a simple electronic device that is used to record votes instead of the ballot papers
and boxes that were previously used in traditional voting systems.
● EVMs
were first used in elections to the Assemblies
of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi in 1998 on an experimental basis in
selected constituencies.
● In
1999, EVMs were used for the first time in general elections (state-wide) to
the Goa Assembly.
● To
ensure free and fair elections, the Election Commission has begun using tamper-proof electronic voting machines
(EVMs) during 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
● Instead
of issuing a ballot paper with the EVM, the polling officer will press the
Ballot Button, allowing the voter to vote.
● A
list of candidate names and/or symbols
will be displayed on the machine, along with a blue button.
● The
voter can vote by pressing the button next to the candidate's name.
● An
EVM has a maximum capacity of 2,000
votes.
● If
an EVM fails, it is replaced with a new one, and all votes cast up to that
point are saved in the control unit's memory.
● The
result can be stored in the control unit's memory until it is deleted or
cleared.
Who produced EVMs?
● Bharat
Electronics Ltd, Bangalore and
● Electronic
Corporation of India Ltd., Hyderabad.
Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail:
● VVPAT
is an independent verification printer machine and is attached to electronic
voting machines.
● It
allows voters to verify if their vote has gone to the intended candidate.
● When
a voter presses a button in the EVM, a paper slip is printed through the VVPAT.
● The
slip contains the poll symbol and name
of the candidate.
● It
allows the voter to verify his/her choice.
● After
being visible to the voter from a glass case in the VVPAT for seven seconds, the ballot slip will be
cut and dropped into the drop-box in the VVPAT machine and a beep will be
heard.
● VVPAT
machines can be accessed by polling
officers only.
When was the VVPAT system introduced in India?
● In
India, the Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system was introduced in
8 of 543 parliamentary constituencies as a pilot project in the 2014 Indian
general election.
● Voter
Verifiable Paper Audit Trail was first used in an election in India in
September 2013 in Noksen (Assembly
Constituency) in Nagaland.
● Voter
Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)
system which enables electronic voting machines to record each vote cast by
generating the EVM slip, was introduced in all
543 Lok sabha constituencies in 2019 Indian general election.
Advantages of EVM:
1. Better storage:
● The
Control Unit can store the result in its memory until the data is deleted or
cleared.
2. Economically viable:
● The
major problems of paper ballots are their printing, storage, and transportation
which involve huge expenditure, lakhs of ballot boxes needed for each election
and logistics problems with their safe storage between elections.
3. Eliminates the casting of invalid votes:
● It
eliminates the possibility of invalid and doubtful votes which were the root
causes for many election petitions.
4. Better handling system:
● Electronic
voting machines are easier to carry and transport from one place to another
without any hassle and single machine can record several votes captured through
that machine.
5. Environmental benefit:
● EVM
voting has simplified the process because it eliminates the need to mark a
ballot paper and place it in a ballot box.
● The
voter simply presses the blue button against the candidate and symbol of his
choice on an EVM, and the vote is recorded.
6. Free and fair elections:
● A
one-time programmable/masked chip is used in EVMs; it cannot be read or overwritten.
● It
is not possible to reprogramme the EVM software in a specific way.
● Since
the EVMs are independent computers without an operating system, no network with
external devices can access them.
● There
is zero chance that electronic voting machines (EVMs) could be programmed to
favour any particular candidate or political party.
Concerns with EVM:
1. Transparency & verifiability:
● EVMs
are neither transparent nor verifiable.
● The
voter cannot see her vote being recorded and also the recorded vote cannot be
verified whether it was recorded correctly.
● The only thing that is
verifiable is the total number of casted votes and not the choice expressed in
each vote.
● An
electronic display of the voter’s selection may not be similar to the vote
electronically stored in the machine’s memory.
2. Hacking of votes:
● There
is a possibility of hacking the remotely altered control unit display through
wireless communication.
● It
is alleged that voting data can be altered by clipping a memory manipulator integrated
circuit (IC) to the memory chip where vote data is stored.
3. Loss of data:
● The
biggest change with technology is that no matter how much data it records, a single virus can destroy the entire data
storage.
4. No certification:
● No
nationally or internationally recognized institutions or governments have
certified the EVMs as cent per cent accurate.
5. Fake votes:
● Most
of the electronic voting machines used in the country do not have any mechanism
by which the voter can verify their identity before casting the vote due to
which fake voters can cast numerous fake votes.
WAY FORWARD:
1. Functional check:
● The
machines are cleaned and previous results are cleared. Switches, buttons,
cables as well as latches are investigated for damage.
2. Random check:
● A
mock poll is held with 5% of the total number of EVMs to be used for a poll.
Around a thousand votes are polled and the result printouts are shared with
representatives of different political parties.
3. Proper training:
● Employment
and proper training of the workforce to manage errors and technological snags.