REMOTE ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE

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• The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday announced the development of a prototype of a multi-constituency remote electronic voting machine (RVM) to enable remote voting by migrant voters.
• The machines can handle multiple constituencies from one remote booth.
• The EC invited all recognised political parties — eight national and 57 State parties — to a demonstration of the prototype on January 16. The panel has already shared a concept note with them on the legal, operational, administrative and technological challenges. The commission urged the parties to submit their views by January 31.
• Opposing the proposal, the Congress said the move could seriously “undermine trust in the electoral system”.

RVM to help migrants vote outside States

• “The voter turnout in General Elections of 2019 was 67.4% and the Election Commission is concerned about the issue of over 30 crore electors not exercising their franchise and also differential voter turnout in various States/Union Territories,” the commission added in the statement.
• The EC noted there were multifarious reasons for a voter not opting to register in a new place of residence, thus missing out on exercising the right to vote.
• The inability to vote due to internal migration is one of the prominent reasons to be addressed to improve voter turnout and ensure participative elections.
• Out-migration due to the need to work, marriage, and education is predominant among the rural population in overall domestic migration. Approximately 85% of the internal migration is within the States.
• It is expecting comments on changes required in legislation, administrative procedures and voting method. Sources in the commission told The Hindu that the idea was to implement voter portability as a pilot project in the Assembly elections in nine States in 2023. If the pilot is successful, then voter portability can be fully implemented in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Concept note

• The EC said it had circulated among the political parties a concept note highlighting the challenges of defining domestic migrants, implementation of the Model Code of Conduct, ensuring secrecy of voting, facility of polling agents for identification of voters, process and method of remote voting and counting of votes and other issues.
• Among the laws and rules that would need amendment to implement remote voting are the Representation of the Peoples Act of 1950 and 1951, the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

Migrant voters

• The definition of migrant voter will also need to be reworked with respect to retaining registration at the original place in the context of the legal construct of “ordinary residence” and “temporary absence”.
• Also, the territorial constituency concept of remote voting and defining remoteness itself, that is an outside constituency, outside district or outside State will need to be dealt with.
• The administrative challenges include enumerating remote voters’ self-declaration, ensuring secrecy of voting at remote locations, provision of polling agents at remote voting booths, and ensuring identification of voters to avoid impersonation.
• Other areas to work on would include the appointment of polling personnel for remote polling stations and supervision thereof, the number of polling booths to be set up and their locations, and implementation of the Model Code of Conduct in remote locations. Some of the technological challenges will be the method of remote voting, the familiarity of the voters with the multi-constituency RVM and counting of votes.
• The EC said it was now ready to pilot an RVM with a public sector undertaking. This modified form of EVM can handle up to 72 multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth.
• “The initiative, if implemented, can lead to a social transformation for the migrants and connect with their roots as many times they are reluctant to get themselves enrolled at their place of work for various reasons such as frequently changing residences, not enough social and emotional connect with the issues of an area of migration, and unwillingness to get their name deleted in the electoral roll of their home/native constituencies as they have permanent residence/property,” the EC said.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB