Electronic Voting Machines

from Bharat Electronics awareness of its reliability and

Limited, India adaptability, so also the political
recognition. All these have been
The world’s largest democracy achieved through a series of
with 671 million voters went to polls meticulously planned events like
in April –May 2004 and elected a exhaustive training to the polling
Government of their choice using the officials, mass awareness
most powerful means of decision programmes to educate voters,
making in the world, The Electronic especially the overwhelming majority
Voting Machine (EVM). Exclusive of those who live in the remote
villages of India, etc. Technical

use of EVMs across the length and experts from Bharat Electronics Ltd.
breadth of a huge country like India worked untiringly alongside the
came off splendidly and the Indian Election Commission officials
unparalleled success of this bold and offering support and assistance for
progressive experiment these activities and also during the
demonstrated to the rest of the elections, ensuring that the whole
world, the country’s technological as process succeeded and it is
well as grassroots democratic remarkable that there have been no
capabilities. About half a million of problems with the machines worth
the EVMs deployed in these elections speaking about. The 2004 general
were designed, manufactured and elections in India, where millions of
delivered by Bharat Electronics voters cast their votes through the
Limited (BEL), a Public Sector electronic voting machines and the
Enterprise of the Government of results of which were declared in one
India. Today, the Electronic Voting single day, was indeed a landmark
Machines have made an easy passage success for the application of
to India’s hundreds of thousands of technology for sustained
villages. There is widespread development of society.

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 been kept as close to the traditional
Around the world, electoral officials voting process as possible.
are examining various technologies
to address a wide ranging array of
voting issues like:- Once the validity of the voter
has been ensured, the Polling official

System adaptability and enables the Ballot Unit and the voter
acceptability by all stakeholders is asked to go to the secluded area
including common people where the Ballot Unit is placed.
residing in remote villages, There, the voter scrutinizes the
probably some of them illiterate names of the candidates / parties
too displayed on the Ballot Unit and

System functionality as close to casts his vote by pressing the blue
conventional ballot paper system button beside the chosen candidate’s
as possible name / symbol. The corresponding

Cost effectiveness and ease of LED is lit and an audible beep is
deployment / maintenance of the heard confirming the registration of
system vote in the system. This process is

System reliability and security in repeated for the next voter. At the
terms of tamper resistance, error end of polling, the process is
free operation etc. completed by the official by pressing

Speed and efficiency of voting and the “Close” button on the Control
results declaration Unit. On operation of the “Result”
button of the Control Unit, the
The machine and the process display indicates the results of the
poll including total number of votes
It is in this context that the cast and the number of votes polled
solution offered by Bharat for each candidate.
Electronics Ltd (BEL) in India stands
out as perhaps the best of available
alternatives. Tamper Resistance

In order to maintain the

The Electronic Voting Machine integrity of the process and ensure
(EVM) from BEL consists of two adequate security in elections, a
interconnected units, the Ballot combination of technological
Unit where the voter casts his vote innovations have been very
by pressing a button alongside the successfully integrated into these
name of the candidate and symbol of machines.
the party for whom the person
chooses to vote for and the Control
The program (software) is fused
Unit by which the polling official into an Integrated Circuit (IC) and
enables the Ballot Unit for the voter is unalterable. These ICs
to cast his vote and where all related themselves are hard wired and
data like number of votes polled for hence cannot be easily accessed or
each candidate, total number of votes replaced.
cast etc. resides. The voting sequence
A unique serial number of the
using the EVM (diagram below) has machine, embedded in the
system, is validated automatically

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 before the commencement of or lacked faith in such a seemingly
operations. Any mismatches non tangible way of voting.
detected, being evidence of
tampering, renders the system Customisation
unusable.

The Ballot Unit has to be The pattern of electoral
activated by the Polling Official, process varies from country to
using the Control Unit. Casting of country. Recognising this variation
a vote is prevented if the Ballot and the need to address it, BEL has
Unit is not enabled / activated by kept its R & D commitment ongoing
the official. to take up the customization and

A voter can cast only one vote. upgradation of the product for the
Once a vote is cast, the Ballot Unit global market. Since the machine has
is disabled automatically. been designed and manufactured by

The operation of the “Close” BEL, implementing changes and
button by the polling official ends introducing new features to the
the poll after which the system system, to meet the specific
does not accept any more votes. requirements of a country’s electoral
process, are well within the
CSDS study company’s capability. Technical
experts carry out country specific
A study conducted by the study of the electoral processes and
“Center for the Study of Developing customized, country specific
Societies” (CSDS), a Non machines are configured and
Government Organisation (NGO) demonstrated to the concerned
brought out the following very officials and decision making
significant observations on the usage authorities. Some of the features that
of EVMs. have been designed and
implemented are given below:
o About 97% of the respondents felt
that EVMs were better than the
Capability to handle elections to
marking system of Ballot Papers, federal and local bodies
one among many other simultaneously.
advantages
o Quicker counting and early
Facility to the voter to change the
declaration of results was selection before confirmation of
appreciated by the political vote.
parties, the contestants and the
Provision to print “Voter
polling personnel. Receipts” as paper trails
o Menace of invalid votes was confirming the cast vote and
eliminated and the disputes providing a back up.
among the contestants over the
Option of recording “Null / Blank
rejected votes disappeared Votes” (for those voters who do
o No section of the people felt not desire to make a choice.)
handicapped by the new system

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Interfacing the Control Unit with automatically enables the Ballot

existing “Electronic Voter Unit.

Registers”. The successful
Incorporation of Group
validation of voter identity representation, multiple
candidates, preferential votes etc.

Comparison with other Computerised systems

The stand alone machines offered by BEL are not susceptible to most of the
currently debated issues of security breaches or fault vulnerabilities and are
under serious consideration for introduction by some of the established
democracies of the world. Some of the important aspects contributing to this
status are indicated below.

EVMs of BEL Computerised Voting Systems

Customised and proprietary hardware Commercial, general purpose hardware

and software & Operating System.

Software fused permanently in Software written in C, C++ etc which

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Integrated Circuits; can not be are unsafe for such applications and
accessed, retrieved or altered. resident in Flash memories, which can
be manipulated.

The unique signature of every General purpose Mother Board

controller used in the machine is architecture do not provide such unique
checked for authenticity, generating features
evidences if tampered with.

Voting data reside in double redundant Voting data generally resides in RAM
EEPROMs; do not need any external with battery back up on Mother Boards
back up battery for retention and are vulnerable for corruption if
battery fails.

Very similar in concept to the Conceptually very drastic change,

conventional voting, Ballot Unit ignores human metaphor, leads to low
replaces the Ballot Paper, Control Unit confidence level for a common voter
replaces the Ballot Box. Minimum
change by automation

Very low investment in awareness Being based on computers, voters need

campaigns and training to be educated elaborately, high cost of
training

Easy transportation, set up and Mains operated, back up by UPS.

operation, operates on battery. Very Transportation and set up costs are
low Mean Time Between Failure relatively high
(MTBF), more than 10 years of Cost of ownership is high
guaranteed life cycle, simple
maintenance Cost of Ownership is
extremely low