{"id":40548,"date":"2024-04-17T03:51:38","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T22:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=40548"},"modified":"2025-04-25T03:45:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T22:15:52","slug":"how-can-the-process-of-voting-be-made-more-robust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/how-can-the-process-of-voting-be-made-more-robust\/","title":{"rendered":"How can the Process of Voting be Made More Robust?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>What is the History of the Voting Process?<\/li>\n<li>What are the International Voting Practices?<\/li>\n<li>What are the Features of EVMs?<\/li>\n<li>Way Forward to Make Process of Voting More Robust<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<p>The Supreme Court has decided to hear petitions seeking 100% cross-verification of the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-daily-current-affairs\/prelims-pointers\/voter-verifiable-paper-audit-trail-vvpat\/\" target=\"_blank\">Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)<\/a> slips with the vote count as per Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).<\/p>\n<h2>What is the History of the Voting Process?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First two general elections of 1952 and 1957:<\/strong> A separate box was placed for each candidate with their election symbol. Voters had to drop a blank ballot paper into the box of the candidate whom they wanted to vote for.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Third general elections: <\/strong>From the third election, the ballot paper with names of candidates and their symbols was introduced with voters putting a stamp on the candidate of their choice.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Introduction of the EVM:<\/strong> It was introduced on a<strong> trial basis in 1982 <\/strong>in the Assembly constituency of Paravur in Kerala.\n<ul>\n<li>They were deployed in all booths during the Assembly elections of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and West Bengal in <strong>2001<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>In the <strong>2004 <\/strong>general elections to the Lok Sabha, EVMs were used in all 543 constituencies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Introduction of the VVPAT: <\/strong>In Subramanian Swamy versus Election Commission of India (2013), the SC ruled that a paper trail is an indispensable requirement for free and fair elections.\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>2019 <\/strong>general elections had EVMs backed with 100% VVPAT in all constituencies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What are the International Voting Practices?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Many western democracies continue to have paper ballots for their elections<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Countries like <strong>England, France, The Netherlands and the U.S.<\/strong> have discontinued the use of EVMs, for national or federal elections, after trials in the last two decades.<\/li>\n<li>In <strong>Germany<\/strong>, the Supreme Court of the country declared the use of EVMs in elections as unconstitutional in 2009.<\/li>\n<li>Some countries like <strong>Brazil<\/strong>, however, use EVMs for their elections. Among India\u2019s neighbours,\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pakistan <\/strong>does not use EVMs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bangladesh <\/strong>experimented in a few constituencies in 2018 but reverted to paper ballots for the general elections in 2024.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What are the Features of EVMs?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Benefits:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The EVM has virtually <strong>eradicated booth capturing<\/strong> by limiting the rate of vote casting to <strong>four votes a minute<\/strong> and thus significantly increasing the time required for stuffing false votes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Invalid votes<\/strong> that were a bane of paper ballots and also a bone of contention during the counting process have been <strong>eliminated <\/strong>through EVMs.<\/li>\n<li>Considering the size of the electorate in India which is close to one billion, the use of EVMs is <strong>eco-friendly<\/strong> as it reduces the consumption of paper.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It provides administrative convenience<\/strong> for the polling officers on the day of the poll and has made the <strong>counting process faster and error-free<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mechanisms to uphold the integrity of EVM and VVPAT process:<\/strong> These include &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Random allocation<\/strong> of EVMs to booths before polls;<\/li>\n<li>Conduct of a <strong>mock poll<\/strong> to display the correctness of EVMs and VVPAT before commencement of the actual poll; and<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>serial number of EVMs along with total votes polled<\/strong> was shared with agents of candidates to verify the same at the time of counting of votes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Doubts raised about the functioning of EVMs:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The most repeated allegation is that EVMs are <strong>susceptible to hacking<\/strong> as it is an electronic device.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The sample size for matching<\/strong> of the EVM count with VVPAT slips at present is 5 per assembly constituency\/segment. This is <strong>not based on any scientific criteria<\/strong> and may fail to detect defective EVMs during counting.<\/li>\n<li>The present process also <strong>allows for booth-wise polling behaviour<\/strong> to be identified by various parties that can result in<strong> profiling and intimidation<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Clarification given by the ECI: <\/strong>EVMs are standalone devices like a calculator with no connectivity to any external device and hence free from any kind of external hack.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Way Forward to Make Process of Voting More Robust<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The sample for matching of EVM count and VVPAT slips<\/strong> should be decided in a <strong>scientific manner<\/strong>. 100% match of EVM count with VVPAT slips would be unscientific and cumbersome.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>In case of even a single error,<\/strong> the VVPAT slips should be counted fully for the concerned region and form the basis for results.<\/li>\n<li>This would <strong>instil a statistically significant confidence<\/strong> in the counting process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In order to provide a degree of cover for voters at the booth level, <strong>\u2018totaliser\u2019 <\/strong>machines can be introduced that would aggregate votes in 15-20 EVMs before revealing the candidate-wise count.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q.1. What is a VVPAT and how does it work in an election?<\/h3>\n<p>VVPAT stands for Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail. It is a ballotless system that prints a paper slip with the name of the candidate, his\/her serial number and the symbol of the party he\/she is standing for.<\/p>\n<h3>Q.2. What is a totaliser machine?<\/h3>\n<p>A totaliser is a mechanism which allows votes from 14 booths to be counted together so that voters are saved from pre-poll intimidation and post-poll harassment. Currently, the votes cast via EVMs are counted on an individual booth basis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/reforms-needed-in-the-voting-process-explained\/article68073269.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Reforms needed in the voting process | Explained<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sample for matching of EVM count and VVPAT slips should be decided in a scientific manner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}