The Election Commission of India (ECI) is ready to pilot remote voting for domestic migrant voters and students so they need not travel to their home states to vote.
The ECI had developed a prototype, the Multi-Constituency Remote Voting Machine (RVM) and has called an all-party meeting on January 16 to demonstrate the technology. RVM can handle multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth.
In a statement on Thursday, the ECI said it has explored the option of using a modified version of the time-tested model of M3 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to enable voting at polling stations outside the home constituencies of migrants, as per Hindustan Times. “The migrant voter would thus need not travel back to his/her home district to exercise his/her franchise of voting,” the statement said.
Representatives of eight recognised national and 57 state political parties have been invited for the demonstration. “The initiative, if implemented, can lead to a social transformation for the migrants and connect with their roots as many times they are reluctant to get themselves enrolled at their place of work for various reasons such as frequently changing residences, not enough social and emotional connect with the issues of an area of migration, unwillingness to get their name deleted in the electoral roll of their home/native constituencies as they have permanent residence/property,” the statement said.
Chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said they wanted to address the main causes for low voter turnout, urban, youth apathy, and the inability of migrants to vote. “The commission has begun programmes to address urban and youth apathy…this [the new technology is for] domestic migrants.”
The ECI has asked political parties to submit feedback related to changes that would be required in legislation and administrative procedures to enable remote voting by January 31. “Based on the feedback received from various stakeholders and demonstration of the prototype, the Commission will appropriately carry forward the process of implementing [the] remote voting method,” the statement said.
The ECI had set up a four-member panel of experts from the Indian Institutes of Technology and the National Informatics Centre in 2020 to assess remote voting.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment