NEW DELHI: With the aim of increasing voter participation, the Election Commission has developed a prototype of a remote electronic voting machine (RVM) for domestic migrant voters and has invited political parties for a demonstration on January 16. If implemented after these consultations, migrant voters will not need to travel to their home districts to exercise their franchise.
Terming the counting of votes cast at remote booths and their transmission to the returning officer in other states as a “technological challenge”, Election Commission officials said the RVMs will be developed as “a robust, fail-proof and efficient stand-alone system” based on existing electronic voting machines and will not be connected to the Internet.
Based on feedback from stakeholders and demonstration of the prototype, the EC said it will appropriately carry forward the process of implementing remote voting.
The poll panel also floated a concept note on remote voting, and sought the views of political parties on admininstrative, legal and technological challenges in implementing it.
The multi-constituency remote EVM, developed by a public sector undertaking, can handle up to 72 constituencies from a single remote polling booth, a statement issued by the poll watchdog said. “After focus on youth and urban apathy, remote voting will be a transformational initiative for strengthening participation in electoral democracy,” Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said.
With the objective of finding a technological solution that is credible, accessible and acceptable to all stakeholders, the commission headed by Mr Kumar along with election commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel “has now explored the option of using a modified version of the time-tested model of M3 (Mark 3) EVMs to enable voting at remote polling stations -- polling stations outside home constituency, for domestic migrants”.
The EC said it has invited all eight recognised national and 57 state political parties on January 16 to demonstrate the functioning of the multi-constituency prototype RVM. Members of the commission’s Technical Expert Committee will also be present.
The commission also solicited written views of recognised political parties by January 31 on various related issues, including the changes required in legislation, changes in administrative procedures and voting methods for domestic migrants.
Describing this as an “excellent initiative”, former CEC S.Y. Quraishi welcomed the commission’s decision to invite political parties for a demonstration of a prototype of remote electronic voting machine for domestic migrant voters. “I think it is an excellent initiative because the migrant voters’ issue has been hanging fire for a long time and we have not been able to find a solution.”
He said it was a good step to invite comments from all recognised national and state parties.
The Congress Party, however, said that in spite of their widespread use, EVMs have aroused much controversy in India and fears of their misuse have not been systematically addressed. AICC general secretary (communication) Jairam Ramesh said the party has made constructive suggestions in the past to increase confidence in the voting process by expanding the number of booths in which Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail slips are counted. However, this has also not been accepted. He said: “We call on the Election Commission to restore trust in the electoral system with transparency and via honest engagement with the Opposition’s concerns.”
Referring to recent examples, Mr Ramesh said that on issue after issue the Congress’ representations to the EC result in no action. “In Gujarat this time we also saw suspicious voting numbers, which showed that 10-12 per cent of voters cast their votes in the last hour of voting. This translates into an impossible 25-30 seconds being taken to cast each vote, which needs a minimum of 60 seconds to cast a vote. Now imagine if these suspicious patterns can be extended via a multi-constituency voting machine to other locations. This would seriously undermine trust in the system.”
