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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?"
How would they know if they have screwed up votes? The ballots read like the Python Spam Skit:
Place your vote:
Egg and Singh
Egg Bacon and Singh
Egg Bacon Sausage and Singh
Singh Bacon Sausage and Singh
Singh Egg Singh Singh Bacon and Singh
Singh Sausage Singh Singh Bacon Singh Tomato and Singh
Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and Singh
Just a joke, lads. In India "Singh" is like "Smith" in the West.
"helicopters, bullock carts and elephants were all used to ferry the machines to the remotest corners of India."
An elephant carrying a voting machine. Even in my wildest dreams I never would have thought of that.
Evolution or ID?
India has just announced that they will be outsourcing all government officials and associated elections to the United States.
An unamed individual was quoted saying, "This is a very positive move for India. The savings will be good for our country because the US has the most skilled politicians that can be bought for the lowest price."
Back to you Kent.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
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.
India's system is a simple box that counts. The system in the U.S. is typically more like an automated teller machine (ATM) with a computer behind it.
The Mercuri method of electronic voting allows the voter to inspect a paper printout of the cast ballot before it lands in the box for use only in the event of a recount. Brazil (and other places) use it. I would like to see it in use wherever direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting is used.
The big quirk in the United States is the decentrallized nature of the voting systems - every county (of which there are about 3400) selects its own voting machines, ballots, and so forth.
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
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.
Just voted in the morning. The Electronic Voting machines (EVMs) have been around in India since 5 years or so, but this is the first one in which they are used throughout India.
The voting process is something like this,
U go to the poll booth assigned, someone finds U in the printed list of voters for the booth, the candidates can have their agents sitting inside, who also verify that my name exists.
The identification is via a electoral card or some defined photo-ids
Next U get a ink mark on the index finger, whcih is supposed to be difficult to erase ( techniques to erase them are "well-known":-))
After that U get a slip which is taken by next official who has to press a button to make the EVM operable. So there is a paper trail of who has voted.
The EVM (as shown in the BBC article is a flat device with the names, symbol of the party and a LED and a button) When the official has given the go ahead, there is a green light on top; one has to press the button against the candidate, a red LED against the candidate glows and U are done.
The procedure is quite simple and is lot better than the ballot paper stuffing before.
The counting is done on a scheduled date, wherein all these EVMs are kept in a specified place and counting happens with the candidates' representatives around.
Some pictures:
http://specials.rediff.com/election/2004/apr/20ele cimg8.htm
The elephant carrier news:
http://www.hindu.com/2004/04/20/stories/2004042001 451300.htm
Some candidates:
http://specials.rediff.com/election/2004/apr/16bod y1.htm
This is third time the EVMs have been used but first time for a national elections.
where did my sig go? where's my sig at?
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!
I don't remember where i read this: The e-voting machines being used in India aren't networked. At the end of the day, the poll workers take the machines to the main district office and plug them into a network. The software on the machines itself isn't reprogrammable.
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.
Their knowledge/usage of computers is limited, and I would put them in the same space as the average Joe/Jane American as far as computer/security knowledge is concerned.
I tried explaining that just a fancy GUI and interface doesn't make for a better voting process, and that the programs/algorithms need to be checked for correctness and security. I don't think the importance of it seeped through - and they still gushed about the fast/easy and hi-tech voting process.
That's about it...I guess the good part is that the machines are mostly firm/hardware and not the beefed up (down?) Windows machines like Diebold's ATM machines in the US. The machines are made by a company called Bharat Electronics. Unfortunately it looks like their server is ASP/IIS based.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.
With this system, the ruling coalition often has a wafer-thin majority which means even an otherwise insignificant party with a small number of seats in parliament can exert and awfully strong influence on the government. The Prime Minister can be toppled pretty much anytime by losing a confidence vote. If the oppisition isnt't strong enough to form a majority coalition after that the only alternative is to dissolve parliament and hold general elections again.
Although this government has lived out its full 5 year term*, there was a period before that when there were 3 general elections in a 5 year period. In addition to the obvious fiscal cost of polling 600 million people, this level of instability deters investors because they don't know when a new government will come in and change policy.
That said, things seem to be maturing to a degree with parties that have caused governments to fall over minor issues suffering heavy losses in subsequent elections, so maybe we will see some happy middle ground where no party has a free hand, but the government mostly lives out its full term.
* Actually they did decide to hold elections a little earlier than otherwise scheduled for political reasons
I squeezed in just before the polls closed at 5:00 PM in Bangalore. I was a little rushed because all the security people kept telling me to hurry up so that they could go home. However the election in my constituency was very peaceful, unlike some other areas.
Interestingly Indian media is not as vocal about the relatively small incidents of violence when compared to the international media.
The electronic voting machines felt a little awkward. There was no feedback to tell me that I had actually voted for the right person, and no mechanism that I could tell to correct myself had I pressed the wrong button. In fact one of the instructions for voters that came out in the Times of India today mentioned that we should make sure the election commission employees monitoring the election didn't "accidentally" press one of our buttons for us.
I would have liked the machine to somehow tell me (either through a display or by printing a little paper receipt) that I had voted for the right person.
Also, one of the women election commission workers was looking down on my machine as I proceeded to push my button. I had to give her a really ugly look, "Do you mind?". She shrugged and went and sat down on her chair. There were representatives from all the political parties contesting for the seat from my constituency.
What's probably not as common in the West is that there were about 10 people contesting from my constituency alone. One each from the major national parties (BJP/NDA, Congress), a couple from the major state parties and a few independents. I think the choice in the West is usually never more than 3 or 4.
After voting each voter is marked with a small drop of ink between the nail and the skin on the forefinger of the left hand. Not sure what they do if you are handicapped.
A state-wide holiday was declared to encourage people to vote. However in some areas it was just too hot in north of the state so the turnout was quite poor (40%-ish) whereas in my state on average I think it is around 60%. I'm sure there were many other factors that affected the voter turnout.
The national parties are promising between 10-12% economic growth, which has probably never been achieved in India's post-independence history. Let's see how things pan out, although it appears the ruling BJP-led alliance will dominate. The question is by how much.
All in all, it still felt good to cast a vote, although numerically the bigger the democracy the smaller the net value of each vote.
Will it work?
Oh, yes.
The officials responsible for the decision to use electronic voting will herald its use as part of India's grand entry into the technology revolution.
Companies providing the equipment will highlight its features, talking about security and speed with which results are available.
Winners of the elections will be too elated to spend time dwelling on the nuts and bolts of the technology used to bring them to power.
Losers of the elections will call into question any irregularities as well as the inherent problems with the electronic voting machines that motivated some of the world's best computer scientists to disapprove of electronic voting.
More complaining will occur for closer elections. Media coverage of the complaining will vary depending on how close the elections are.
In the end we'll all accept the inevitable results:
[Damn! Applied the wrong firmware again!]
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Electronic voting systems are all very good. They are simple enough to use - push the button with your favorite party symbol - that people didn't seem to have a problem even though we have a lot of uneducated folk.
However, where the electronic voting was nice, the human factor wasn't. You still have to fill out a ton of forms to get your name on the lists. You need to produce all kind of proof of ID, age and address. You need to go to the office several times to make sure your name gets on the voting list and after all that, sometimes, it just isn't.
Why? because some politicians feel that if they wipe out an entire area that may be hostile to their party from the polling lists, it would be better for them. A lot of my neighbours came away really frustrated and dissappointed because their names were not there even though they had gone through the entire procedure.
So basically, what I'm saying is, e-voting and all is very nice, but given a choice, I'd rather color a circle with a pencil if that's what it takes to be sure that my name will be on the list next time around.
I mean, after all, why do we propose e-voting? To streamline the process right? From experience, I feel that the machines are a very small part of the process and that they should be considered onlt AFTER other issues have been ironed out.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
See subject.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.