New Delhi: Ever wondered why electronic voting machines, used in four Lok Sabha elections and 127 assembly polls since 2004, are not deployed in polls to elect the President and Vice President of India, members of the Rajya Sabha, and members of state legislative councils?
EVMs are based on a technology where they work as aggregator of votes in direct elections. Voters press the button against the name of the candidate of their choice and the one who bags the maximum number of votes is declared elected. But election of the President is held in accordance with system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.
In accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote, every elector can mark as many preferences, as there are candidates contesting the election. These preferences for the candidates are to be marked by the elector, by placing the figures 1,2,3, 4, 5 and so on, against the names of the candidates, in the order of preference, in the space provided in column 2 of the ballot paper. The EVMs, officials explained, are not designed to register this system of voting. The EVM is an aggregator of votes and under the system of proportional representation, the machine will have to compute votes based on preference and it requires an altogether different technology.
In other words, a different type of EVM would be needed.
According to the August, 2021 issue of 'My Vote Matters', a quarterly magazine of the Election Commission, since 2004, EVMs have been used in four Lok Sabha and 127 assembly elections. According to the EC website, first conceived in 1977 in the Election Commission, the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. (ECIL), Hyderabad was assigned the task to design and develop it.
In 1979 a prototype was developed, which was demonstrated by the EC before the representatives of political parties on August 6, 1980.