Remote voting for migrants proposal: What are RVMs, how they will work
- December 31, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Remote voting for migrants proposal: What are RVMs, how they will work
Subject :Polity
Context:
- The Election Commission spelled out its plan in a letter to political parties on December 28, asking them to attend a demonstration of the prototype Remote Voting Machine (RVM).
Remote Voting Machine (RVM):
- Working with the Electronics Corporation of India, a company under the Department of Atomic Energy, the EC has come up with a prototype Remote Voting Machine (RVM), which is a modified version of the existing Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
- The RVM will be able to handle 72 constituencies in a single remote polling booth.
- The RVM is a standalone and non-networked system.
- Instead of a paper ballot sheet, the RVM would have a dynamic ballot display that can change with the selection of different constituencies.
- The system would have a device similar to the VVPAT so voters can verify their votes.
How will the Remote voting process work?
- The special remote polling booths would be set up in different states when elections are on in the home state of migrants.
- The EC proposed using this in a State Assembly election as a pilot so internal migrants within a state can cast their ballots.
- The remote voter will have to pre-register for the facility by applying online or offline with the Returning Officer of the home constituency.
- The special polling stations would then be set up in the places of current residence of the remote voters.
- The units will save the number of votes for each candidate for each of the constituencies, to be tallied on counting day. The results would then be shared with the home RO.
Unique feature of RVMs:
- A single Remote Ballot Unit (RBU): To cater to multiple constituencies (as many as 72) by using a “dynamic ballot display board” instead of the usually printed paper ballot sheet on EVMs.
- Ballot Unit Overlay Display (BUOD): It will show the requisite candidates based on the constituency number read on the voter’s Constituency card, which can be read by a barcode scanning system.
Need for Remote Voting Machine:
- While registered voters do not end up voting for a variety of reasons, domestic migration – is driven by marriage, natural disasters, employment, etc.
- As per the 2011 census, there are nearly 45.36 crores (forty-five point three six) migrants in India (both intra and interstate) – nearly 37% of the country’s population.
- These migrants are unable to travel to vote, denying a large chunk of the population its franchise, going against the EC’s motto – “No voter left behind”.
- The EC had formed a Committee of Officers on Domestic Migrants, which recommended (in 2016) internet voting, proxy voting, early voting and postal ballots for migrant workers (rejected due to concerns like lack of secrecy of the vote, the lack of sanctity of one person one vote principle, issues of accessibility, etc.)
- Thus, a technological solution was proposed which allows voters to vote remotely, in a safe and controlled environment.
Major concerns include:
- The system has issues, some of which the EC has itself acknowledged. For example,
- Migrants are not a uniform and defined class, with fluid identities, locations and situations.
- As various countries reject EVMs for paper-based ballots, this move may have the potential to raise further questions on the sanctity of the electoral process itself.
- Remote voting can theoretically provide an added edge to bigger parties and richer candidates who can campaign across the constituency and beyond.