Electronic voting machine
The Election Commission of India, under Article 324, conducts elections for the President, Vice President, Parliament, and state legislature. It ensures superintendence, control, and due direction of the elections. However, the credibility of the Election Commission of India and its officers is always questioned regarding the way they conduct the elections and the methods used. Therefore, it is important to navigate the reality of whether EVMs can be hacked or not.
What is must for election?
For an election to be transparent, there are four principles that need to be seen:
- Anonymity
- It mean that voters whose votes are being cast. It should not be clearly visible or identified.
- Scalability
- India has the world's largest electorate, approximately 98 crore voters. Conducting the election smoothly is a task.
- Speed
- In India results need to be declared to prevent any deadlock because of MCC/policy paralysis.
- Accuracy
- Sometimes, a non-accurate result may affect the mandate of the people. Sometimes, invalid voters are even greater than the winning margin.
History of EVM implementation
Post-commencement of the Constitution, no statutory provision or provision of any law has authorised the use of EVM. The ballot paper was used as a law used to authorise this. The Election Commission of India, in December 1977, mooted the idea of an electronic voting machine to overcome certain problems associated with the use of ballot paper: taking advantage of development and technology to cast their vote correctly without the resultant ambiguity, and removing the invalid voters totally.
M.B. Haneefa first invented the machine in 1980. It was used in 1981 in the by-election of the North Paravur constituency of Kerala in 50 polling stations. The EVM was commissioned, and the election was held. However, the election was declared unconstitutional by the court because there was no law which has authorised the use of electronic voting/EVM.
The EVM provision was not mentioned. As a result, it was required to be amended. The EVM was then manufactured by Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited. After the law was passed by Parliament, new section 61A was added. As a result, now the RP Act, 1951, outlines the provision of EVM explicitly.
Facts about EVM
It has two units, namely the control unit and the balloting unit. Once the control unit is pressed, the calling officer signals the water to cast. The water cast is washed, which is joined by a 5 m cable to the balloting unit. The water cast, the word, and the beep sound are heard.
The EVM cam recorded 3,840 votes, where idle votes are 1,500.