EVM

Criticizing Electronic Voting Machines by comparing US & Japan against India has no analogy. United States is against networking of the electronic voting machines and not against the use of such machines altogether. The newly constituted Federal Election Assistance Commission (in the US) is debating with the individual states on introducing a paper backup for the elections. Fewer states such as Georgia, Ohio and California have already introduced touch screen voting machines. Nevertheless to mention that the conventional punch cards in 2000 presidential election created a major embarrassment to the voting process in the state of Florida.

The entire world recently witnessed the use of EVMS which demonstrated the Indian democracy in action. India has effectively established the use of EVMs as the pioneer in the world’s largest democratic election process. Change is the only constant and we should be ready to accept the consequences of such change. Usage of EVMs against the paper ballots goes to the fundamental issue that election reform in our country has been obsessed with since the last decade. The paper ballots are not tamper proof either. If the Indian elections need to be conducted with paper ballots even after investing thousands of millions of rupees on EVMs, why not we go back to Stone Age and live as nomads?