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Electronic Voting Machines-A Silent Revolution That Astonished World

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It was a defining moment for world’s largest democracy. 671 million voters went to polls in April –May 2004 and elected a Government of their choice using the most powerful means of decision making in the world, The Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).

Exclusive use of EVMs across the length and breadth of a huge country like India came off splendidly and the unparalleled success of this bold and progressive experiment demonstrated to the rest of the world, the country’s technological as well as grassroots democratic capabilities.

The Representation of People Act, 1951 was amended by the Indian Parliament in 1989 to facilitate the use of EVMs. However, they were really put to use only after a decade, when the Commission took a bold initiative for introducing EVMs in 16 Assembly Constituencies during State Legislative Assembly Election in November 1998.

In General Election 2004, EVMs were used for the first time throughout the country making the elections go fully electronic. The user friendly EVMs could be used even by the illiterates with ease. Since the EVMs work on battery, electricity was not a problem. The polling personnel carried EVMs in convenient boxes.

The use of EVMs was preceded by an elaborate training programme and widespread campaign to educate the voters, candidates, political parties, media and the election staff.

The failure rate of the machines was negligible.

The use of EVMs saved around 1,50,000 trees which would have otherwise been cut for production of about 8,000 tonnes of paper required for printing the ballor papers, if traditional system of ballot boxes was adopted.

The use of EVMs made possible reduction in the number of polling stations from 0.77 million to about 0.7 million, as the maximum number of voters per polling station could be increased to 1,500 from earlier prescribed limit of 1,200.

EVMs were transported to polling stations by all imaginable means.

About half a million of the EVMs deployed in these elections were designed, manufactured and delivered by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a Public Sector Enterprise of the Government of India.

Today, the Electronic Voting Machines have made an easy passage to India’s hundreds of thousands of villages. There is widespread awareness of its reliability and adaptability, so also the political recognition.

All these have been achieved through a series of meticulously planned events like exhaustive training to the polling officials, mass awareness programmes to educate voters, especially the overwhelming majority of those who live in the remote villages of India.

Next time you press that button, remember we were first in the world to do it on such a large scale

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Tags: democracy, electronic voting machine, india elections, vote