ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES

We Indians are much ahead in the world today in somethings like widespread use of Electronic Voting Machine in all levels of our democratic elections. We are far behind among other countries in happiness index, literacy, adequacy of food, cleanliness, safety of women, crime rate, corruption and umpteen such other things. Though many people and media have expressed nonreliability in EVMs the government has conclusively established this system of voting. More advanced countries like USA, UK, Japan, Germany, France etc are yet to introduce this. As per media reports Japan and Israel have totally stopped the use of EVMs in election. There may be adequate reasons for the same. What are those?

It is not that we should not use EVMs in the country. About a billion people are the users, many of them are illiterates and, therefore, the pros and cons should be told them before asking them to use it. Of late, according to media reports, Election Commission has admitted that EVMs were hacked in 6 (six) states in India in the last election. If that is true we must suspend the use of EVMs in any election until we are certain that it is not hackable.

K V George