Slashdot Mirror
India Starts All-Electronic National Elections
fantomas writes "Forget the problems of e-voting in a state in some middling sized western country as recently reported by Slashdot. The world's largest democracy is about to go to the polling stations and vote for a new government using all-electronic voting systems. Will it work? Will the USA follow if all goes to plan? Can any readers from India comment on how it seems to be going?"
Some "third-world" countries have difficulty keeping track of their population, in other words, some people simply are not registered on any lists. For those countries, using biometrics for voting actually makes sense, as it allows for "unregistered" people but disallows them from voting twice. In fact, it's a bit of a paradox - biometrics could actually be the answer for those people who don't like the government keeping records on them.
Will it work?
Why so much scepticism? The electronic voting machines are being used in India from quite some time now. But this is the first time that the whole of the general election will be paperless. So it is just the matter of scale (1 million voting machines), which is of interest.
Now India has an interesting democracy - a 22-party coalition (which is expected to win this election as well) in control of the government. That's quite a refreshing change from the point of view of someone in an (effectively) one-party state like South Africa (with the African National Congress getting a controlling 69% in the recent election). I'm not sure which would be better, 2 strong parties, like in the US, or dozens of small parties forming coalitions, like in India. I would guess that the coalitions would allow for more fluidity in politics than 2 (or a few) strong parties.
The main issue is that the software used is closed-source, and it is closed even to the political parties involved in the election.
But now there's some pressure to open-source the code, mostly by the left-winged parties (PDT, PC do B, PSTU, PT and smaller ones). And there is a good chance that it may happen, because our current governament is supporting, and recommending, opensource software.
With some work, in the future Brazil may be the fist country to use full electronic elections, with full open-souce software!
For those who don't want to RTFA about the election itself , this BBC link within the story is about the voting machines themselves.
Brazil's last general elections were all electronic. No big news there. There is a single Brazilian system, where a different company designs each module. Party-appointed technical representatives can audit the whole system.
India and Brazil have other things in common: illiteracy and poverty. Most of the users of the electronic ballots in Brazil cannot understand what they read on the screen. Electoral candidates in small towns "teach" people to vote on them, by making them memorize the key sequences.
I just wonder if these countries couldn't be spending time, money, and minds on more relevant issues.
This guy faced the threat of actual violence at the polls. He turned up to vote nonetheless. It's great to see that some people still believe in democracy.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world in the homelands of democracy, the turnout at elections is what exactly, these days? And the danger we face on our way to the polls is... the prospect of injury caused by getting our fat arses off the sofa once every five years?
Sometimes I think we deserve the George and Tony show, I really do.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
This is how it worked for me today:
1. You need a voter id card. If you don't have that, any govt. id is supposed to work.
2. They check your name twice against two hardcopies of the voter lists. In addition, the larger parties have their own guys hanging around with their own copies of the voter lists to make sure there's no mischief.
3. You sign or fingerprint against your name in a ledger.
4. Next you get a dab of indelible ink on your left index finger.
5. Finally, they enable the EVM by pressing a master key. A green light comes on on the box.
6. You get to vote. The green light goes off, and the button you hit goes red. After a delay of about 5 seconds, it beeps and goes off.
What could be easier?
Surely even americans might be able to follow the above.
Why don't you guys outsource your next election to the Indian Election Commission and you won't get that miserable failure as a president for the second time?
I am from and in India. AFAIK, we have not had any problems with these electronic voting machines. They have been in use for quite some time now, they were never used in all constituencies, however.
:). The Election Comission would be forced to use paper ballots. These goons resort to capturing polling booths and electronic voting machines make their task tough.
:) :)
The only potential problem with them that I have come across in local media reports is that of some political goons registering dozens of dummy candidates... their aim being to have more candidates in a constituency than the number of buttons on the machines
Now I guess these enterprising political goons will have to enlist hackers
I am sure if there's an american hacker out there upto the task, he/she can reverse the outsourcing thing
Dont make a better sig, you insensitive clod!
The electronic machines were last used in elections to four different state goverments in december of 2003. Taking advantage of the fact that many voters in remote areas were illiterate and were using the electronic machines for the first time, the election volunteers instructed them to vote for a particular party only, explaining that, that is the only button that works on the machine.
Now the interesting fact is that most of these volunteers were government employees and they were pissed off at the outgoing government for withholding their bonuses and they had a score to settle with them.
So they instructed the poor illterate voters to vote for the rival party!
I'm quite sure that there would be many such intances in this election of politicians exploting people's ignorance and getting them to vote for some party for which they might not have wanted to vote.