Slashdot Mirror
India Chooses All-Electronic Voting
MaximusTheGreat writes "While the U.S. debates the merits of e-voting, India has decided to have all electronic polls in the next elections for its billion strong population. Though India has used e-voting partially in previous elections, it will be the first time a Lok Sabha (central parliament) election will be held in the country since 1952 without the use of ballot papers. Election Commission plans to use about 800,000 electronic voting machines. Also, taking note from India's experience, other commonwealth countries like Malaysia and Britain will be sending representatives to India to see the use of EVMs during the Assembly elections. On a related note they plan to make voter's identity card mandatory for voting."
While the U.S. debates the merits of e-voting
... "India is pushing ahead and leaving the USA behind". Actually, it is a fine idea to debate the merits before taking a big risk on the key process in democracy.
... electronic voting has not been trialled on anything remotely this big. AFAIK no city/state/province has run an all-electronic election, let alone an entire country. Great initiative, plenty for everyone to learn from, but seems just a bit dangerous.
This makes it sound like a bad thing
I'm surprised India is doing this
BTW Does this mean the end of election night coverage?
(End of day, sorry you lose,hasta la vista)
I don't understand the Americans. They have more people living in poverty than there are people in Spain, yet they build nukes and spend tons of money so they can live on the bleeding edge of [insert thing here].
So what the FUCK is your point?
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Funny, a lot of people in the world look at the U.S and think the same thing. No universial health care!? No free university!? High school students who can't read!? Weird.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Holding electronic elections is a sign of a backwards country, not an advanced one. Electronic elections are more prone to fraud and breakdown unless done with great care. See this site for details.
Oddly enough, I'm Indian, so don't take my opinion as too slanted.
.. more accuracy and probably less corruption, but the poor people need in. It's their country too.
Anyhow, let me start by saying that this is a very thrilling next step in India's experiment with democracy. It'll be awesome to see the elections being conducted with minimal fraud (hopefully combated with the ID cards), but I see a very serious problem.
0.75 USD is the equivalent of about Rs. 30, and in a country where the Rs. 30 can buy a gourmet meal for 5 (well, I'm exagerating, but please try to see my point), it strikes me as quite a price for a vote. See, voting is no longer something that anyone can do, in fact, it's a form of discrimination. If the government can't teach the masses, and then they charge a ridiculous amount of money to get a ID card for an election, they're essentially telling the poorer (and likely less intelligent people) that they can't vote.
We're too quick to forget what happened when the United States decided that it was time for competency tests, and black people were discriminated against.. because comptency was directly in line with socioeconomic status. This is unfair to the poor people. It's a sad day in India when these 800,000 machines (which will hardly service 1,000,000,000 people) are spread through India.
Obviously it's nice to see voting become fast and easy
I'm not crying about the 0.75 USD, I'm just saying that it's a form of discrimination. They shouldn't be required to have these ID cards, which they will be required to have. Even if it's not a requirement, it'll be a major turn off to voting.
Well, there's my 0.75 USD.
A major problem with these new voting machines is that they do not allow you to cancel your votes without letting others know. If you want to cancel your vote (in case if you don't like any of the candidates), you will have to fill up a form and submit it to the officer in charge. During the ballot era - you could put the mark beside two or more candidates, and your vote would get cancelled automatically. Of course, one can abstain from voting altogether, but in that case, chances are that the local politician's pet goons would cats the vote in your name :-).
I would still worry about ballot rigging, etc. I can still see ways in which such things can be manipulated. Other than ballot rigging, my other fear would be privacy. Maybe you could find ways to deduce who voted for which candidate.
the same reason why americans went to the moon - 1. because you can do it 2. you do not stop living just because poverty is a problem. Poverty is always a problem in every society. While poverty is being tackled should an entire nation stop investing in technology and stuff used to enable one to "live on the bleeding edge of.."? 3. I don't want this to be a troll, but your question is plain silly and condescending.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Shit.
Same old RSS propaganda material.
Most common excuse given to hide from the fact that the caste system has always been extremely unfair to the lower castes, a highly shameful, dehumanizing and severe abuse of human rights.
(I am an Indian) I too used to believe what you said, having been brainwashed by the right, but I'm sorry to tell you that there's no truth to it. I've done courses on Indian history, and I assure you that it doesn't become any better as you go back in time (which is contrary to the central dogma of Hindu philosophy). Buddhism and Jainism arose more than 2500 years ago as rebel movements against the caste system. (If you haven't guessed it already, I'm atheist).
Here's an interesting tidbit: the concepts of karma and rebirth arose (partly) as a method of oppression of the underprivileged, as a tool to convince them that the misery they faced was the result of their own faults in "previous births".
Anyway, my rant is done. I'll accept two things you said: dirty politicians leverage caste to achieve their dirty ends, and that it initially arose as a functional classification. But there's no way at all you can justify it, its been sickening and shameful almost from the beginning (the dividing line is, IIRC, between the "early Vedic" and the "later vedic" periods, when Varna became "Jathi".)
Look, the only thing wrong with voter identity cards is if they are made "difficult" to get. Making access to the right to vote hard is the way that various immoral gerrymnaders were maintained, in particular the "literacy" test for voter eligability is a classic example of how to stop a sector of the electorate from voting, just make the application to get on the electoral role a process that required a literacy test (all for the most logical of reasons of course! Like to ensure that the elector can understand the ballot).
:-)
Requiring proof of identity is not a problem, and a card is a pretty reasonable way of doing it, the dye approach is equally reasonable. In Australia, by way of contrast, the whole problem of fraud is largely avoided by making the voting process mandatory (it aint completely avoided but anomalies are much easier to detect). One is registered at a specific location for voting and one is expected to vote at that location (elections are on Saturdays) your name is checked off and clearly if you get there and your name is already checked off then there is a problem. There is a mechanism for absentee and postal ballots for those who are away, but these numbers are few and indeed for many electorates these votes are not relevant for the outcome. Clearly this process would be 50 times larger in india, but that is probable still manageable and there is a strong tradition of voting so making it compulsory shouldn't be impossible. Then the identity fraud problem really goes away (other more overt forms of fraud remain however
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Simple. Indian eletions are conducted in stages (the whole country will not go to polls on the same day). Often elections are spread across several weeks.Overall results are announced when everything is complete (so that results don't influence votting pattern in places where election is yet to take place).
If US didn't turn a blind eye when Chinese supplied all the nuke tech to Pakistan, India would not have the need for nukes. Remember (unlike US) India has two nuke powered neighbours who have in the past waged wars on India. I'm not sure it was correct to test nukes a few years back ... that was definitely politics. India should have just kept the options open and never gone openly nuclear (like Isreal does now).
Ofcourse, not having nukes will not remove poverty. In a way, they are cheaper than a war with Pakistan (definitely that has helped prevent a war ... don't know for how long).
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
The average time to get re-hired in South Carolina is 11 months. And that's in the booming industries.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You go to vote, get a retinal scan stored with your vote. If you vote more than once, [insert appropriate action here: {use the most recent vote | use only unchanged votes | throw away vote | some other action}].
You can't do this because it is a secret ballot. The votes just get recorded, there is no record of who voted for who (could lead to some uncomfortable situations).
No matter what there will always be some weakness. India has a seperate body to monitor elections and they have forced reelections in certain areas that hint fo fraud or mischief.