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Use voting machines against booth capturing

Era Sezhiyan

Electronic voting machines can help prevent rigging, which Chennai witnessed on a shocking scale on October 13. But to ensure fair and free elections, we need persons in office with credibility and commitment to implement justly the rules of law and order.

MUCH OF the bedlam of booth capturing and rigging let loose in the recent local poll in Chennai could have been avoided had the State Election Commission used electronic voting machines (EVM). The failure to use voting machines contributed largely to booth capture.

Booth capturing can be defined as seizing a polling station, intimidating polling officers, casting votes in an unauthorised manner, and preventing genuine voters from casting their votes.

The marking system of voting was introduced in 1962 to make it possible for a substantial number of illiterate voters to indicate easily their preferences in choosing their representatives. Over the years, there was a pronounced increase in the volume of work: crores of ballot papers had to be printed and lakhs of ballot boxes had to be prepared, transported, and kept in storage; and a great amount of time was taken up by the conduct of elections. To overcome these difficulties, the Election Commission of India (ECI) thought of electronic gadgets. The Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. (ECIL), Hyderabad, and Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL), Bangalore, developed the electronic voting machine in 1981.

When the ECI used, as an experimental measure, voting machines in the 1982 Parur Assembly poll in Kerala, there was an election petition questioning the statutory authority of the Commission. In that case, the Supreme Court decided that voting machines could not be used without a necessary provision under the law. With amendments to the election law adopted in December 1998, the ECI was prepared to use voting machines in the 1999 Lok Sabha poll. However, it had to postpone this as some political parties raised apprehensions about a possible manipulation or distortion of the electronic instrument to favour some candidates or party symbols.

The question of the reliability of the voting machine was taken up in March 1990 for consideration by the Committee on Electoral Reforms appointed by the V.P. Singh Government. The Committee, headed by Law Minister Dinesh Goswami, had as its members leaders of major parties, including L.K. Advani (BJP), H.K.L. Bhagat (Congress), Somnath Chatterjee (CPIM), Homi Daji (CPI), and myself (Janata Dal). In the working of the Committee, I was entrusted with the task of preparing, with the assistance of K. Ganesan, Special Consultant, the notes and draft recommendations. So I am fully aware of the background of electronic voting machines.

Experts' evidence

The Committee took copious evidence from experts of ECIL and the Department of Electronics. Further, we got clearance from the Expert Committee for Technical Evaluation of the Electronic Voting Machine in respect of the doubts and apprehensions raised about the credibility of voting machines. In the end, we recommended use of the voting machines "in all future bye-elections and general elections to LS., Assemblies and also Panchayats and Local Bodies with educating the electors and familiarising them with the working of the machines."

A remarkable advantage is that rigging is not possible with the EVMs. In the ballot paper system, the intruders can mark hundreds of ballots and put them into the ballot box in a matter of a few minutes.

This is not possible in voting machines as the machine is designed to be capable of recording a maximum of five votes per minute. (The pace of polling can be set to any predetermined number before manufacturing.) Thus, even for recording about 100 bogus votes it would take the booth captors 20 to 25 minutes, during which time the law and order officials may intervene to stop the rot.

Moreover, as soon as the presiding officer apprehends any mischief, he can stop the poll by pressing the special switch after which no votes can be recorded. Under Rule 49X of Conduct of Election 1961, the presiding officer of the polling station is empowered to close the control unit of the voting machine to ensure "that no further vote can be recorded." There is no possibility of any bogus votes being polled after the close of the poll and during the transit of the machines from the polling booth to the counting centre.

A vote once recorded in an EVM cannot be tampered with, whereas in the ballot paper system the votes marked and put into the box can be pulled out and destroyed. The EVMs are capable of retaining the memory of the votes recorded for a period of three years. If the machine is tampered with in any respect either during the poll time or at any time before the counting of votes, that will be easily detectable so that a fresh poll can be ordered.

The EVMs have these advantages: (i) the saving of considerable printing stationery and transport of large volumes of electoral material, (ii) easy transportation, storage, and maintenance, (iii) no invalid votes, (iv) reduction in polling time, resulting in fewer problems in electoral preparations, law and order, candidates' expenditure, etc. and (iii) easy and accurate counting without any mischief at the counting centre.

The 2004 Lok Sabha elections were held with more than a million EVMs. The recent Assembly by-election in the Madurai Central Constituency was also conducted with them. No complaint has been raised by the party in power or its alliance partners or by those in opposition about the system of voting there.

At the press conference on the close of the poll in Chennai on October 13, in response to a question on why voting machines were not being used to avoid bogus voting, State Election Commissioner D. Chandrasekaran said that "the SEC would need at least Rs. 200 crore for the purpose" and it would think about that for the next round of local elections.

It is highly regrettable that the State Election Commission could not get the sum indicated for the conduct of free and fair polls allotted. The SEC could have taken on loan from the ECI the required number of voting machines for the Tamil Nadu local polls. Should the voters remain dumb for another five years?

At the close of that frightening and fateful day, October 13, the State Election Commissioner told journalists that the "the first phase of polling for the local body elections in the State went off peacefully, barring sporadic incidences in a few places."

Even more regrettable was the contention of the Tamil Nadu Director-General of Police, D. Mukherjee, that "the police department had received only some complaints on the law and order from in the entire State."

The highest officers in the State entrusted with the conduct of free and fair local elections and the maintenance of law and order were inexplicably unaware of or chose to be inexcusably inept in preventing the innumerable violent incidents that rocked the voting in Chennai. Instead of a free poll for the voters, it was a free day for marauders.

The entire structure of a democratic republic rests on the conduct of fair and free elections, which is a basic feature of the Constitution according to Supreme Court decisions. Anything done, overtly or covertly, to demolish and distort the conduct of free and fair election is unconstitutional and undemocratic. It is obvious that pushing an electronic button or issuing a stern order alone will not ensure fair and free elections. To be effective and meaningful, we should have persons in office with credibility and commitment to implement justly the rules of law and order.

(The writer is a former Member of Parliament.)

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