Sansad TV: Perspective- Remote Voting Facility – INSIGHTSIAS

Introduction:

The Election Commission of India has decided to set up a committee to explore the possibility of allowing migrant workers to vote remotely on a pilot basis. According to an ECI there needs to be a concerted effort to see problems faced by migrant workers in exercising their franchise. ECI had set up a four-member panel in 2020 to assess the technology landscape to enable remote voting. The panel, which consists of members from the IIT-Bhilai, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Madras and the National Informatics Centre, has presented a concept plan to the ECI to enable a two-way transfer of vote and ballot. Currently, postal ballots are meant only for service voters such as army personnel who cannot return to vote.

Election Commission of India said that despite all efforts, voter participation had remained only around 67% in general elections. A key factor contributing to this was the inability of the people, who had migrated from their native constituencies for various reasons, to vote. Unless structural changes in the election processes were made, it would be difficult to increase participation.

Electronically transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS):

• ETPBS is developed by Election Commission of India with the help of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), for the use of the Service Voters.
• It is a fully secured system, having two layers of security. Secrecy is maintained through the use of OTP and PIN and no duplication of casted Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot (ETPB) is possible due to the unique QR Code.
• Persons working in paramilitary forces and the military and government officials deployed in diplomatic missions outside India are classified as Service Voters.

Significance and benefits:

• This system enables the entitled service voters to cast their vote using an electronically received postal ballot from anywhere outside their constituency.
• The voters who make such a choice will be entitled for Postal Ballot delivered through Electronic Media for a particular election.
• The developed System is implemented inline with the existing Postal Ballot System. Postal Ballot will be transmitted through Electronic Means to the voters.
• It enables the voters to cast their vote on an electronically received postal ballot from their preferred location, which is outside their originally assigned voting constituency.
• This system would be an easier option of facilitating voting by the electors as the time constraint for dispatch of postal ballot has been addressed using this system.

Remote voting with the help of Block Chain Technology:

• Remote voting, as an option, has gained some priority during the COVID-19 pandemicin order to address social distancing.
• In the U.S., the mail-in ballot system, where registered voters received ballots and returned it via post or dropped it off at secure “drop boxes” or voting centers, was widely used, but this was entirely paper based.
• The blockchain methodimplements an online public bulletin board that allows for a linear ordering of data to which a user can only further append data.
• The board itself is public and available for anyone to read and verify. The technology has been put in use for cryptocurrencies the Bitcoin blockchain records a list of transactions that can be read to find out who owns which bitcoins without any centralised authority.
• In the case of a blockchain-based voting system, the voting authority will have to authenticate this bulletin board in which users sign in using cryptographic signatures to register their votes in a ledger.
• While this system, with its cryptographic features, promises data security and verifiability, the fact that it will depend upon a network and devices could introduce vulnerabilities that are present in any Internet-based system.

Way Forward- Vote from anywhere:

• Director, IIT Madras, stressed on the need for the new remote voting systemto not deviate much from the present electoral process followed.
• The system must have mechanisms to gain confidence of not only the voters, but booth agents of parties and independent candidates as voters would be allowed to vote from anywhere.
• Stating that a remote voting system would be a major step forward in enabling franchise for migrant population, he pointed out how students of his institution often expressed dissatisfaction over their inability to vote as they were away from home.
• While remote voting could help such people, including those outside the country, to vote from wherever they were, such a system must satisfy the highest standards of security and trustworthiness.
• Highlighting how technology had been adopted in the election process, he pointed out how electoral rolls were in physical ledgers at the sub-district level just a decade ago.
• Today, we have electoral rolls of 90 crore voters in a single portal and online services are provided for registration.
• Arguing that evolving a technology might not be difficult, what was important was to ensure transparency and trustworthiness.
• It is to improve trustworthinessin the electronic voting machines (EVMs) that we had to bring VVPAT (Voter-verified Paper Audit Trail). The IITs and other premier institutions working on remote voting.