Transparency is the essence of democracy and electoral transparency is the guiding principle of political democracy. After seven decades of achieving Independence, it is high time now to introspect and analyse as to what extent we have been able to achieve and how mature our democracy is today. Have we truly worked upon the framework enshrined in our Constitution on political democracy to ensure transparency in our electoral system and raise confidence, trust and faith of the electorates in our electoral system?
Every system in place may have some advantage and disadvantage which is also true to the use of paper ballots and EVMs. Ever since the EVM was introduced its use and misuse have been debated widely and continue till today for one reason or the other and last week an alleged EVM hacking claim was made at a press conference in London. There is no doubt that EVM has been misused from time to time and no government can claim high moral ground. There have been charges of misuse against one party or the other. Today, if we are debating electoral transparency even after seven decades of Independence, we cannot claim that our democracy has matured enough as envisaged earlier. Together the government and the Election Commission can ensure electoral transparency provided there is a will to do.
When EVMs were introduced in India, it was anticipated to bring speed and accuracy in counting ballots and the impression gathered at that point of time was that it may not be manipulated. The system adopted was considered an advanced concept in the electoral process. But over the years the corrupt mindset discovered the fault lines through which the EVM could be easily tampered with for or against a political party or its candidates.
The manner in which EVMs have been tampered one election after another provides an ample opportunity for the authorities and the experts concerned to initiate a debate on its misuse to ascertain how to contain effectively the tampering threat. The question arises: why to stick to this system when most of the advanced countries have rejected its use? Should we now go back to the old paper ballot system or should we continue with the EVMs along with some rider that can pass the transparency barometer test to ensure that it can hardly be tampered; and if tampered, it could be easily traced and corrected?
Presently, most developed countries do not use EVMs. The USA uses paper and electronic ballot whereas the UK and Germany now use paper instead of electronic devices. There are many more countries to have reverted to the paper ballot after discovering fault in EVMs and its susceptibility to misuse and tampering.
On the question of advantage and disadvantage, Dr Anupam Saraph, who is a Future Designer, Professor of Systems and Decision Sciences and a renowned expert in the governance of complex systems and was advisor to various international and national organisations, including UNESCO, Lead International, Asian Dialog Society and Planning Commissions told Radiance, “EVMs claim to offer several advantages. They remove the requirements of printing ballots and transporting them to every block. They offer the possibility of instantaneous counting. They offer the perception that booths cannot be captured and ballots cannot be replaced. In reality, the logistics of preparing the EVM is as complicated, if not more, than printing ballots. Not only must the batteries in control units that store votes, be replaced but each EVMs ballot unit and control unit has to be configured for each constituency to match the number of candidates. Unlike printing paper ballots, this is a technical task. The entire task is outsourced to private players and no person from the Election Commission can actually certify each EVM or even each booth.
“The advantage of instantaneous counting is lost when counting happens a month after the elections. The EVMs do not provide any assurance that the vote cast was stored and counted for the candidate for whom it was cast. Paper ballots, in contrast, do provide an assurance that the vote was cast and stored for the candidate for whom it was meant. Neither, however, guarantees that it was counted.
“Booth capturing in case of ballots is very visible and easily traceable on suspicion. This is not in the case of EVMs. With EVMs booth capturing happens when EVMs are hacked during maintenance or configuration or replaced before counting. This is difficult to trace and establish.” Saraph argued.
“EVMs also allow the replacement of votes cast in favour of one candidate to another because it is simply changing the number of votes polled in a memory location, not an individual ballot paper that has to be removed and a new one added. It is not helpful when the Election Commission remains in denial that booth capturing or ballot replacement is possible with EVMs. In order to protect the vote of each voter, a better approach would be to use paper ballots that can be machine readable. Just like currency notes are counted by machines, ballot papers could be counted by machines. This brings in the speed of counting of technology and the fidelity of the paper ballot,” Anupam opined.
G Sampath, in his article, “Why EVMs Must Go,” published in The Hindu on January 24 has brilliantly argued, “The reason a nation chooses to be a democracy is that it gives moral legitimacy to the government. The fount of this legitimacy is the people’s will. The people’s will is expressed through the vote, anonymously (the principle of the secret ballot). Not only must this vote be recorded correctly and counted correctly, it must also be seen to be recorded correctly and counted correctly. The recording and counting process must be accessible to, and verifiable by, the public. So transparency, verifiability, and secrecy are the three pillars of a free and fair election.”