Electronic voting in India

Electronic Voting Machines ("EVM") are being used in Indian General and State Elections to implement electronic voting in part from 1999 elections and recently in 2017 state elections held in five states across India. EVMs have replaced paper ballots in local, state and general (parliamentary) elections in India. There were earlier claims regarding EVMs' tamparability and security which have not been proved. After rulings of Delhi High Court, Supreme Court and demands from various political parties,Election Commission decided to introduce EVMs with Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system. The Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system was introduced in 8 of 543 parliamentary constituencies as a pilot project in Indian general election, 2014.

In 1980, M. B. Haneefa invented the first Indian voting machine, gazetted "Electronically operated vote counting machine" (Gazette: 191/Mas/80, 15 October 1980). His original design (using Integrated Circuits) was exhibited to the public in Government Exhibitions held in six cities across Tamil Nadu. The EVMs were commissioned in 1989 by Election Commission of India in collaboration with Electronics Corporation of India Limited. The Industrial designers of the EVMs were faculty members at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay. The EVMs were first used in 1982 in the by-election to North Paravur Assembly Constituency in Kerala for a limited number of polling stations.

An EVM consists of two units, control unit and balloting unit. The two units are joined by a five-meter cable. Balloting unit facilitates voting by voter via labelled buttons while control unit controls the ballot units, stores voting counts and displays the results on 7 segment LED displays. The controller used in EVMs has its operating program etched permanently in silicon at the time of manufacturing by the manufacturer. No one (including the manufacturer) can change the program once the controller is manufactured.

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