The EVM vs ballot paper debate rages on even as the first phase of Bharat’s general elections has concluded successfully. Polling for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections concluded on the 20th of April evening in 102 constituencies across 21 states and union territories.
There are many firsts in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Residents of the Chandameta village of Chhattisgarh cast their votes for the very first time since independence. This came days after the Bharatiya security forces successfully concluded the anti-Naxal operation in the state, killing at least 29 Naxals in Bastar, formerly notorious as the hub of Red Terror. In Arunachal Pradesh, members of the Shompen Tribe, a particularly vulnerable tribal groups at the islands cast their vote for the first time and posed for selfies at a polling station specially designed for the members of this tribe known as “Shompen Hut”.
Bharat is in the middle of Lok Sabha elections and all that the opposition can think of is raise a hue and cry about EVM machines. The opposition campaign to create controversy around the use of EVM voting machines started making its presence felt in 2019 when the BJP government secured even a stronger mandate than the 2014 elections and the Modi government came to power yet again.
Since then, the opposition has been running a propaganda campaign against the use of EVMs in elections, blaming the ruling BJP for tampering the EVMs and influencing election results. Propaganda it is because the opposition lacks any evidence whatsoever to support what it is saying. One hasn’t come across a single incident of so-called EVM fraud in Bharat. Non-BJP governments exist in multiple Bharatiya states – Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh Karnataka, Kerala, etc. If the BJP were indeed using EVMs large-scale to influence elections and hamper democracy, wouldn’t it be tempted to manipulate the state elections as well?
A certain portion of the media has also jumped onto the bandwagon to add further fuel to the fire. Most of these articles are unsubstantiated pieces that give out opinionated statements but cannot present any credible evidence vis-à-vis EVM tampering in Bharat. The main argument seems to be that since a majority of developed countries – the UK, the US, France, Germany, etc. use paper voting and some of these have banned the use of EVMs, Bharat should do the same. This reeks of a colonial mindset that Bharat should meekly follow the line of thought of western countries. Most of the countries that follow the paper ballot voting system are even smaller than the size of mid-sized Bharatiya states. Thus, to compare a country like Bharat with these countries and expect it to conduct such large-scale voting operations using a now redundant paper ballot system is indeed ludicrous.
Regarding the slew of petitions filed regarding discontinuing the use of EVMs and returning to ballot papers, even the Supreme Court has rejected a return to the ballot paper system.
The Supreme Court rather questioned petitioners who raised doubts about the sanctity of the EVM voting system. “Fortunately, we are now in our sixties. We have seen what used to happen earlier. Have you forgotten that? If you have forgotten that I am sorry. I have not forgotten”, said Justice Sanjiv Khanna, presiding over a two-judge bench. These remarks were addressed to Advocate Prashant Bhushan who appeared for petitioner-NGO Association for Democratic Reforms seeking 100 percent verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips. Presently, 5 EVMs are randomly verified against VVPAT slips per Assembly segment.
Prashant Bhushan’s argument in favor of reverting ballot papers essentially was that most European countries had gone back to ballot papers. Justice Datta responding to his suggestion, said that the conduct of elections in Bharat was a humongous task and that one should not draw analogies and comparisons from Germany and other countries. “My home state West Bengal has more population than what Mr Bhushan said about Germany’s population. It’s a very small state…We have to repose some trust and confidence in somebody. Of course, they are accountable…But don’t try to bring down the system like this”, Justice Datta further remarked.
The country is in the middle of Lok Sabha elections. The Election Commission of Bharat has been working relentlessly for the past 2-3 years to coordinate this mammoth exercise. Yet, the opposition has stooped to such levels that it’s looking to disrupt the country’s elections through a slew of motivated petitions questioning and challenging the use of EVMs.
The Supreme Court has reserved its verdict on a bunch of petitions demanding 100 percent cross-verification of votes cast on EVMs with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs). Regarding the petitions, the EC reportedly told the Supreme Court that it was pained by what was said about the VVPAT slips in EVMs. The poll body stated that it took “painstaking efforts” to prepare for the elections for the past three years.
Talking about the history of the use of electronic voting machines in Bharat, it’s not as if EVMS were invented overnight by the BJP government to rig elections. These machines developed in the 1970s as a response to the menace of organized booth capturing and vote rigging. The EVMs thus were introduced by the Election Commission of Bharat to guarantee free and unbiased elections.
Sham Lal Shakdher, the former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) from 1977 to 1982, played a significant role in the ECI’s transition from ballot paper and boxes to EVMs. The transition from ballot paper system to EVMs is also seen as a strong response to the problem of booth capturing, wherein armed individuals would capture a booth and stuff the ballot box with votes favoring a specific candidate. 29 parliamentary constituencies reportedly experienced forcible ballot paper stuffing in the 1977 general elections.
The prototype of a simple EVM was developed by the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) in 1980. Thus, the use of EVMS started in Bharat on a micro-scale in the 1980s. The EVMs were first used in Bharat on a large scale in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. With EVMs having such a long and non-partisan history in Bharat, it’s strange that the opposition is reacting as if EVMs are an exclusive invention of the BJP to influence elections. Since the EVMs were first introduced in 2004, Congress governments have been in power. Thus, they had no problem with the EVMs then. But after the BJP secured a landslide victory in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, the Congress started alleging EVM fraud all of a sudden. There couldn’t be a better example of the proverbial “grapes are sour” adage!
You just have to google the phrase “History of booth capturing in India” to know about the horrors of the electoral process before the use of EVMs when armed criminals would capture entire booths, intimidating voters and forcing polling officers to surrender ballot papers. Booth capturing was such a menace in the Bharatiya elections that during every election season, numerous such incidents from different corners of the country created headlines.
Does the opposition want Bharat to return to that era of terror and lawlessness, and undo all the progressive reforms that the EC has painstakingly undertaken over decades to improve the transparency and accountability of the election system? This indeed raises questions on the credibility and intent of the Congress and other opposition parties than the BJP. Are they intimidated by the transparency and fairness of the Bharatiya electoral system? Do they miss the old days of booth capturing so that they can perhaps have their way?
Brookings published an article titled “India’s electoral democracy: How EVMs curb electoral fraud” in the run-up to the 2019 general elections in Bharat. The article was based on a research study outlining the benefits of transitioning to EVMs in Bharat’s electoral process.
The article explains how the EVMs in Bharat are designed to prevent and minimize the impact of incidents of booth capturing on the voting process. “There is also a ‘close’ button to disable the device in the event that a polling booth is captured by force. Greater transparency is created by the fact that electronic voting signatures and thumb impressions are maintained in a register open to public inspection, which is in contrast to paper balloting where inspection took place only under court orders and where the validity of any ballot was determined at the discretion of an election officer”, says the article.
In essence, we can say that the use of paper ballots granted a disproportionate amount of discretionary power to local officials, thus giving a free field to the nexus of local politicians and goons to influence elections. The EVM system makes the whole process way more centralized and officially regulated, thus minimizing the scope of election rigging and booth capturing.
The article further says that the research study on the use of EVMs in Bharat found that the voter turnout saw a decrease after the introduction of EVMs and that the percentage of decrease was higher in states with a history of electoral fraud. “Using state assembly election data, the authors found that the introduction of EVMs reduced the number of voters by 3.5 percent and the voter turnout by 3.18 percent overall. From 1976 to 1977, the average winning margin was 15,8 percent and hence, a drop of 3.18 percent in voter turnout could, in turn, greatly affect election outcomes. The paper finds that the decline in number of voters was substantially higher in states prone to electoral fraud where politicians faced serious criminal charges. At the same time, the paper uses post-poll surveys conducted by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies to show that turnout for vulnerable groups such as women, scheduled castes and tribes, senior citizens and illiterate voters increased after EVMs were introduced. EVMs increased the likelihood of a less educated voter casting their ballot by 6.4 percent empowering vulnerable groups”, says the article.
While it’s true that the use of the paper ballot system is more common globally than the use of EVMs, more than 20 countries apart from Bharat, use some component of electronic voting in their electoral process. Brazil uses EVMs in its electoral process, along similar lines. Countries like Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Nepal, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, etc. use some form of electronic voting in their electoral processes. The US uses a combination of direct voting machines to read the votes marked on ballot papers, along with ballot papers.
Thus, the opposition argument regarding the supposed loopholes in the use of EVMs seems mere hollow rhetoric. The European democracies like the UK, Germany, France, etc. that the petitioners are giving examples of, are miniscule in comparison to Bharat and have altogether different contexts. Thus, the comparison doesn’t make any sense. By running a full-fledged propaganda campaign against the use of EVMs in the middle of the election season, the opposition is playing dangerously divisive politics.
It’s akin to making voters suspicious of Bharat’s electoral process in the middle of elections, thus making them doubt everything and filling their minds with unsubstantiated prejudices. This is not good for the health of any democracy. Perhaps, any decision regarding all these petitions should be strictly postponed till the conclusion of the 2024 elections. It’s essential for maintaining the sanctity of our democracy.
