A Vote of Confidence

Context: Bihar assembly elections in 2020 further reinforce the robustness of the Indian election model.

Factors that ensures the robustness of the Indian election model:

• Unprecedented level of organization: 

• In 2019, over 610 million people from a nearly 910 million eligible voter population voted.
• In 2019 elections, India had 1.03 million voting booths, with 3.96 million EVMs and 1.74 million VVPAT machines deployed.
• The election process in India is not a one-time activity: Electoral lists are updated annually in January with minor updates before state and national elections.

• Respects all stakeholders: Indian election results are respected by all important stakeholders like the citizens, winners and most losers, media and the international community.

• Governed by uniform laws: the Election Commission of India (ECI), an autonomous statutory body, is singularly tasked with conducting all national and state elections.

• Enforces the Model code of conduct: for candidates, parties, media and government

• Ensures fair electoral practices:

• Introduction of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.
• Employing a secure technology: EVMs are not connected to any network, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi signals

• In 2017 ECI offered a “white collar” hackathon to improve the technical integrity of EVMs. Till date, no loopholes have been identified with the existing EVM system.
• Comparing EVM count with VVPAT contained paper receipts had shown no mismatch in 2019 national election results.

• EVMs are stored in a secured location under tight security after the election
• Transparency on the result day: ensured through real-time results in the ECI website and options to cross-certifying the results.

Way Forward: Utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Elections, which seeks to build intelligent systems and high value “state of the art” (SOTA) techniques — for instance, scale, speed and, above all, trust.

Conclusion: With the robust Indian election system and the proven integrity of the EVMs, there is no good reason to return to the old paper-based elections.