The paper trail or paper confirmation receipt, which would be automatically printed by the electronic voting machine, would help eliminate doubts cast on the EVM system
Moneylife Digital Team
The Election Commission of India (EC) will soon start filed trials of the vote confirmation ticket, which will show where the individual had cast his/her vote. In a tweet reply, Dr SY Quraishi, chief election commissioner (CEC), said that the development of the paper trail is in a very advanced stage and soon the EC will run a field trial.
The paper trail or paper confirmation receipt, which would be automatically printed by the electronic voting machine (EVM), would help eliminate doubts cast on the EVM system. It appears that when the voter presses the button for the candidate of his choice in the EVM, a paper ballot with the serial number, name and symbol of the candidate will be printed. The printouts will be used later to cross-check the voting data stored in the EVMs.
Earlier, while speaking at Moneylife Foundation’s second anniversary celebration, Janata Party president, Dr Subramanian Swamy talked about how EVMs can be easily tampered with. He said that India is among the few countries that use them without a check-back mechanism. Even Japan, which provides the microcontroller for our EVMs, does not use them without paper confirmation tabs, Dr Swamy added.
State-run Bharat Electronics (BEL), which makes the EVMs in India, also confirmed that the EC has given their requirements and it would incorporate the new features. Speaking with media persons in January 2012, Anil Kumar, managing director of BEL had said, “The software in the EVM will be modified and a printer will be attached to it. When you cast a vote, the serial number and some data will be generated in the form of a printout. It is to ensure that there is no malpractice in the voting system.”
EVM are being used in general and state elections to implement electronic voting in part from the 1999 elections and in total since the 2004 elections. EVMs were first used in 1982 in the by-election to North Paravur Assembly Constituency of Kerala for about 50 polling stations.
In April 2010, an independent security analysis was released by a research team led by Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and J Alex Halderman. The study included video demonstrations of two attacks that the researchers carried out on a real EVM, as well as descriptions of several other potential vulnerabilities.
The researchers suggested moving to a voting system that provides greater transparency, such as paper ballots, precinct count optical scan, or a voter verified paper audit trail.
Majority of political parties backed the demand to have a voter verified paper audit trail in EVMs to counter charges of tampering. After that the EC, in October 2010, appointed an expert technical committee headed by Prof PV Indiresan (former director of IIT-M) to consider the feasibility of the proposal.
Earlier in January 2012, the Delhi High Court, while refusing to issue directions to the EC, had suggested that the Commission should hold wider consultations with the executive, political parties and other stakeholders on the matter of paper audit trails.
Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy had had moved the high court seeking its directions to the Commission that a paper trail be incorporated to record the votes cast through EVMs or the old system of paper ballots be brought back.
The EC had opposed the plea, saying returning to the paper ballots would not be feasible as it would require immense expenditure as there were over 73 crore eligible voters in the country.
BEL has supplied about 8 lakh EVMs to the Commission. These old machines would be replaced with the Commission certifying new models with advanced technology in a phased manner.