Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora on Saturday said that the remote voting facility is likely to be launched by the 2024 Lok Sabha election with its first pilot project expected to begin in the next two to three months.
The facility will enable people who are unable to visit their polling booths on election day for some reason to exercise their franchise from a remote location.
“Remote voting may see the light of the day by 2024 Lok Sabha elections. A team of technocrats and experts from IIT, Chennai, and some other IITs are working on it in full swing. We hope to see the first pilot project in the next 2-3 months,” Arora said.
About Remote Voting Facility (RVF)
- It will enable a voter to cast his or her vote from any polling station in the country.
- It will remove the compulsion on voting only at the domicile polling station. (As the voter is registered in his domicile).
What is the current scenario in this field?
- The first pilot project of the remote voting facility is likely to start in the next 2-3 months.
- A team of experts from IIT Madras and other IITs is working on drafting the modalities of ‘remote voting’ or ‘blockchain’ voting system in full swing.
Blockchain Technology
- A blockchain is a distributed ledger of information which is replicated across various nodes on a “peer-to-peer” network (P2P Network)
- The data exists on multiple computers at the same time. It constantly grows as new sets of recordings or blocks get added to it in a decentralization manner.
- All transactions that occur on a standard Blockchain are verified and signed with cryptography to ensure security and anonymity.
Working of Remote Voting Facility
- In the first stage, the user’s voter identity will be verified and authorized through a multi-layered identification system. This system can have web cameras and biometric identification. This will prevent duplication.
- In the second stage, a blockchain-enabled personalized e-ballot paper will be generated. The citizens will use this paper to cast his/her vote.
- In the third stage, an encrypted blockchain hashtag (#) will be created. This hashtag will then be sent to all the people in the chain. So, the person cannot cheat his/her vote in other locations.
Significance and Benefits of Remote Voting Facility (RVF)
- Solves the problem of ballot portability: Remote voting would appear to benefit internal migrants and seasonal workers, who account for roughly 51 million of the populace (Census 2011).
- Useful for People in Remote Places
- Helps Increase Voter Participation: Remote voting solutions may facilitate the participation in elections by specific groups of citizens, including expats, military voters, voters resident in health and care institutions, and prisoners.
- Speed and Secure: The blockchain-based voting system not only provides real-time results, but also ensures that the counting is foolproof, and with blockchain, nobody can tamper the results.
- It will Promote Inclusivity: Individuals who move a lot from one place to another like students, patients, migrant labourers, essential service providers, etc. will become part of the electoral process.
- Bring Flexibility: An individual can cast his/her vote from multiple locations and not solely from one registered polling station.
What are the Challenges with Remote Voting Facility?
- Requirement of physical presence and biometric authentication: The electors would still have to physically reach a designated venue in order to cast their vote, whereby systems would use “white-listed IP devices on dedicated internet lines”, and the system would make use of the biometric attributes of electors
- Technology not yet fully secure: Blockchain solutions rely heavily on the proper implementation of cryptographic protocols. If any shortcomings exist in an implementation, it might be misused
- Prone to targeted Denial-of-Service attacks -where an attacker would be in a position to block traffic from the system, effectively preventing, or at the very least delaying the registration of votes
- Privacy Concern: Any misuse of user’s biometrics and facial data by concerned authorities or hackers would undermine the right to privacy.
- Confidence and trust of stakeholders: Nowadays, political parties and candidates are questioning the credibility of EVMs.
Suggestions to improve Remote Voting Facility
- The government has to do a wider consultation with all the concerned stakeholders like political parties and civil society groups.
- In the pilot phase, the Parties and candidates should get timely notifications of RVF.
- The Election Commission should organise the RVF hackathons in order to build greater public confidence.
- Awareness generation should be done for ensuring a universal voter turnout.
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