Electronic Voting Machine (EVM)

Why is it in news?

• The issue over the reliability of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) has been in news ever since the results of assembly elections of five states came out in March.
• Some of the political parties raised doubts over EVMs regarding their technical sophistication.
• The Election Commission invited political parties to prove that electronic voting machines (EVMs) can be tampered with.
• The Uttarakhand high Court earlier in its order refused to stay the “EVM Challenge” organized by the Election Commission of India.
• It also stated that the exercise would not in any way impact the outcome of the currently pending election petitions on the EVM issue.
• On June 4^th, High Court stated that the outcome of EVM hack had no bearing on pending poll petitions.
• Advantages of EVM
  • It eliminates the possibility of invalid and doubtful votes which were the root causes for many election petitions.
  • It eliminates the need for production and printing of ballot papers
  • A substantial reduction in expenses happens when it comes to transportation, storage, and recruiting counting staff.
  • EVMs have reduced the time taken in election procedure.
  • Results can be stored in the machine memory before it is deleted manually.
  • Indian EVM is a standalone machine which cannot be connected to any network and controlled through network or remote. Its original programme contained in a burnt chip cannot be altered, making it tamper proof.

  Issues pertaining to EVM

  • Reliability: “Electronic Voting Machines: Unconstitutional and Tamperable”, a volume edited by Subramanium Swamy jointly with S. Kalyanaraman, a former senior executive of the Asian Development Bank, raised several questions on EVMs reliability.
  • The EVM has no means for the voter to verify that his/her votes have been tallied properly.
  • A candidate can know how many people from a polling station voted for him. This may lead to favoritism.