Election Commission showcases remote EVM prototype to political parties in Delhi

The Election Commission of India on Monday demonstrated the prototype of the remote Electronic Voting Machine to representatives of major political parties in Delhi. The remote EVMs are aimed at addressing the issue of migrants being unable to vote since they move out of their constituency to other places for work.

Remote voting, if implemented, can potentially remove the biggest roadblock in voters missing out on their right to exercise their franchise due to internal migration, the EC had said while announcing the concept last month.

“It is understood that there are multifarious reasons for a voter not opting to register in a new place of residence, thus missing out on exercising the right to vote. Inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migrants) is one of the prominent reasons to be addressed to improve voter turnout and ensure participative elections,” the Election Commission of India had then said.

The EC had sent out invitations to eight national and 57 regional recognised parties for the demonstration of the RVM today morning. Members of EC’s Technical Expert Committee are also present at the presentation.

While inviting parties for the demonstration of the prototype, the poll panel had also issued a concept note on the technology. Parties were also asked to give in writing their views by end of January on issues such as changes required on the law to allow use of RVM.

Election Commission officials had earlier said RVMs will be developed as “a robust, failproof and efficient stand-alone system” based on existing electronic voting machines and will not be connected to the internet.

The multi-constituency remote EVM, developed by public sector undertaking Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), can handle up to 72 constituencies from a single remote polling booth. ECIL and Bharat Electronics Ltd are the two PSUs manufacturing the EVMs.

The RVM is a modified version of the time-tested model of M3 (Mark 3) EVMs to enable voting at remote polling stations — polling stations outside home constituency, for domestic migrants.