Recently the Election Commission (ECI) of India developed a prototype of a remote electronic voting machine for migrant laborers. The Election Commission has invited all the political parties for a demonstration of the device on January 16, as it plans to move ahead based on the comments and feedback received from various stakeholders.
Background & Aim
The Election Commission (EC) said on Thursday that it is prepared to test a remote voting system for domestic migrants, ensuring that voters who are not in their home constituencies may nevertheless cast their ballots from their present location.
The action aims to increase voting in assembly and general elections, which many voters tend to skip owing to a variety of considerations like employment, marriage, and education.
Despite an increase in voter turnout for the Lok Sabha elections, the commission claimed that voter turnout has plateaued and that about 30% of individuals are still not registered to vote.
The Prototype
The EC stated that it has been collaborating with Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), the companies that produce the current EVMs, to create a reliable, efficient, and stand-alone system for remote voting based on the current EVMs.
A modified version of an EVM called a Multi-Constituency Remote EVM (RVM), produced by the ECIL, a division of the Department of Atomic Energy, could manage up to 72 constituencies in a single remote polling station.
The planned RVM system would allow domestic migrants to vote in their home constituencies from distant locations, such as their places of employment.
A person would be able to use specialized remote voting booths in the present state itself to cast a ballot for their home constituency from wherever they are under the new system. These distant polling places would also accommodate voters who were registered with the state’s several constituencies.
How will you vote?
Before elections, a distant voter must pre-register for the remote voting facility by applying either online or offline.
The home constituency will verify the voter’s information, and if the verification is satisfactory, the voter’s request for distance voting will be authorized.
In the locations of their present residences, specialized multi-constituency remote voting polling booths will be put up.
Features of the RVM
A remote voting machine is a stand-alone, unconnected device with the same security characteristics as the current EVMs. It offers the same voting process to the voter as an EVM. The RVM system is simply a modified version of the current EVM system.
In multi-constituency polling places put up in outlying areas, RVM will be employed. By employing a dynamic ballot display in place of the printed paper ballot sheet on BU, a single Ballot Unit (BU) may serve several assemblies and parliamentary constituencies at a single polling place.
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