Difference of INDIAN EVM with other Countries

Free and fair elections are central to the democratic ethos of any country. This includes fair, accurate, and transparent electoral process with outcomes that can be independently verified. Conventional voting accomplishes many of these goals. However, electoral malpractices like bogus voting and booth capturing pose a serious threat to spirit of electoral democracy. It has, thus, been the endeavour of the Election Commission of India to make reforms in the electoral process to ensure free and fair elections. EVMs, devised and designed by Election Commission of India in collaboration with two Public Sector undertakings viz., Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad, is a major step in this direction.
Electronic Voting Machines ("EVM") are being used in Indian General and State Elections to implement electronic voting in part from 1999 elections and in total since 2004 elections. The EVMs reduce the time in both casting a vote and ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES declaring the results compared to the old paper ballot system. Bogus voting and booth capturing can be greatly reduced by the use of EVMs. Illiterate people find EVMs easier than ballot paper system. They are easier to transport the EVMs compared to ballot boxes.
EVM has become the leitmotif of the world's largest democratic exercise and gets smarter with each avatar. Here is an attempt to briefly trace the evolution of the EVM and its use in the world's largest democracy.
EVMs were first used in 50 polling stations of Parur Assembly Constituency of Kerala in May 1982. These machines could not be used after 1983 after a Supreme Court ruling that necessitated legal backing for the use of Voting machines in elections. The law was amended by Parliament in December, 1988 and a new section 61A was inserted in the Representation of the People Act, 1951 empowering the Commission to use voting machines. On 24th March, 1992, necessary amendment to the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 was notified by the Government in the Ministry of Law and Justice. An Expert Committee was constituted by the Govt. of India which concluded that these machines are temper proof. Since, November 1998, EVMs have been using in each and every general/ bye elections to Parliamentary and Assembly Constituency. India turned into an e-democracy in General Elections 2004 when EVMs were used across all polling Stations in the country. Since then, all elections were conducted by EVMs .
The process of electronic voting can be of three types:
(i)Direct Recording Machines placed at designated polling station,
(ii)Internet Voting
Remote Online Voting
At Designated Polling Stations
(iii)Optical Scanners
Stand-alone
Networked for centralized counting of results
EVMs used in India fall under the first type of stand-alone direct recording machines with no possibility of any kind of network connectivity where voters cast their votes at an assigned polling station on the day of election under strict administrative security ensured by the ECI.
Even though ECI EVMs are also direct recording machines ECI EVMs are completely different from any of the EVMs used internationally either for direct recording or for internet voting or for optical scanning. This is clearly highlighted in the comparative analysis of ECI EVMs with the DRMs used in countries like Germany, Netherland, Ireland, and USA as follows:
Germany:
In Germany, the e-voting machines manufactured by NEDAP were used in between 2005 - 2009 before it came under criticism and finally discontinued. The Bundesverfassungsgericht (the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany) ordered the discontinuation of the use of NEDAP machines in 2009 because of the below-mentioned reasons:
The use of Nedap electronic voting machines violated the principle of the public nature of elections (Article 38 in conjunction with Article 20.1 and 20.2 of the Basic Law) that requires that all essential steps in the elections are subject
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment