EVMs: Need to protect the secrecy of voting process

As the final phase of voting gets underway on Wednesday, the Election Commission (EC) is preparing for the ‘climax’ of the month-long electioneering on May 16 when the counting of votes will be taken up.
While the counting will be a smooth and quick process with the introduction of the electronic voting machines (EVM), there is a basic question that needs to be addressed to protect the voters’ identity.
The voting is supposed to be a sacred as well as a ‘secret’ exercise. But since the introduction of the EVMs on a mass scale in 2004, it has become easier for the political parties to pin point in which polling booths they have secured sizeable votes and in which ones they have lost support. They can virtually track the voting pattern in each booth.
Shreepad Gaonkar has been on poll duty in the remote forest region of Malavalli village in the midst of Western Ghats for a number of years. Commenting on the development work carried out by the state government in his village, he said, “When we approach the local MLA, he says that in the last Assembly election he did not get the lead in our polling booth and tells us point blank that he can’t sanction any work in the region since the people had voted for the opposition candidate.”
Obviously, this is the result of a flaw in the electoral system where the secrecy of the voting process is sacrificed during the counting of votes. Guru Marthi, an experienced poll manager of a political party says, “In the earlier days of the ballot box, they used to mix the ballot papers from different booths in order to maintain the secrecy of  voting. This mixing of ballot boxes gave an overall picture of the entire constituency. However, with the introduction of EVMs, we know how the people have voted and made our job easier to locate the pockets where we need to put in our best efforts to get better results.”
Under Rule 59 A of the Conduct of Election Rule, 1961, it was essential to mix ballot papers from different polling booths before the counting began. This was done in order to keep the secrecy of the voting process, with very little chance to identify which group of people had voted for a particular candidate. This was essential to keep the sanctity of the electorate and to prevent any repercussions for having cast their vote without fear and prejudice.

Exposing the voter

But, with the introduction of EVMs now laying bare the voter preferences, it has long-term negative ramification on the way the elected representatives relate to a particular polling booth and the voters therein.
In order to address this issue, the Election Commission had convened a meeting of political parties during the Assembly elections in 2004. To avoid the fear of intimidation and victimisation of the electorate, a new way of counting votes was proposed using ‘totaliser’ for the counting of votes registered on EVMs. In this process, the votes cast in all the polling stations are put together and then counted.
However, this ‘totaliser’ rule is applied by the Election Commission in an ad hoc manner and it is done only in ‘specially notified’ constituencies where the commission feels that the electorate fear victimisation and intimidation.
For the healthy functioning of democracy it is essential that we evolve a foolproof electoral and counting system that builds the confidence of the voter. If we neglect this principle, a sense of  demoralisation among the voters is bound to set in that will defeat the very freedom of expression.
Already the Indian society has experienced fragmentation in terms of caste and religion, eroding the secular credentials. The counting process should not accelerate this process of fragmentation of the social fabric of the country.
In order to strengthen democracy, the EC as well as BEL (Bharat Electronic Limited, which manufactures EVMs) should try to find a solution. Every problem has a solution and our electronics experts will need to address this at the earliest. Having harnessed the electronic revolution to cater to the needs of expressing democratic choice, it is essential that we do not commit the mistake of identifying the voter, which defeats the sanctity of the voting process.

(The writer is a social and environmental activist)