Electronic Voting Machines or EVM as people know them are very important part of voting or elections in Indian states. And Election Commission of India uses EVMs in both Indian General and State Elections. It is so because EVMs help in electronic voting during elections. In this article you know how to use electronic voting machines and what is use of these machines.
Electronic Voting Machine
It was M B Haneefa who invented voting machine for the first time in India. And this was in the year 1980. While for bye election in North Paravur Assembly Constituency, Kerala Election Commission of India used EVMs for first time. From that time these voting machines became a part of elections at Centre as well as State levels.
Voting machine design and technology used
Electronic Voting Machine or EVM has two units. Here first unit is control unit while other unit is balloting unit. As name says balloting unit helps Voter to vote and there are different party names on this section of the machine.
Control unit on other hand stores voting counts. It also controls ballot units while displaying results on seven segment LED displays. You also see that there is list of names of party and candidates on machine. And there is blue button next to these names and / or symbols.
When you vote then you press any one of the button so your vote counts. Moreover there are 6V alkaline batteries in this machine that allow EVM to work even during power cut. Electronics Corporation of India Limited Hyderabad and Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore manufactures these machines.
Thus there is no problem even when power cut is there as EVMs continue their work even then. Plus incidents of electric shocks are not a part of this as well.
What are advantages of Electronic Voting Machine?
There are many advantages of EVMs or Electronic Voting Machines and the same you find below –
- Electronic Voting Machine decreases time to cast vote
- Saves paper
- Decrease time to count votes
- 64 candidates in one constituency
- Powered by batteries
- Storage of votes is 10 years
- You can cast only one vote
- 5 votes in one minute
- No one can change EVM program because there is security chip (sealed)
- NOTA or None of the Above option is also there
- In case you select this option then it means that you are not happy with any promises made by candidates or not happy with candidates
Also know about bye elections in Andhra Pradesh, Goa and NCT of Delhi scheduled for 23 August 2017.
How does EVM work?
There is a simple technique that is there with how EVM works. This simple technique has been explained below in detail –
Step 1:
In this step officials who are there in poll booth will press a blue colour ‘Ballot’ button. As this button gives permission for the Voter to cast their vote.
Step 2:
In second step Voter can press any button which is next to name and symbol of candidate. Here you must note that you press button only for that party or candidate whom you would like to elect.
Step 3:
After you press button or cast your vote then poll booth officials will press ‘Ballot’ button second time. In this way only another person can cast their vote or elect candidate.
Step 4:
Finally when every person casted their vote then poll booth officials press on ‘Close’ button. Doing so will end balloting which means voting is over. And after that all voting machines or EVMs go for vote counting.
Hence in these four ways you use EVMs. On other hand Indian Government started using EVMs because it became easy for them in many ways. In addition there was less cost involved in election voting and people also felt it to be user friendly.
That is why many other countries also use EVMs for voting in elections. These countries have EVMs that were manufactured in India. Some of these countries are Bhutan, Kenya, Namibia and Nepal. And now you came to know about these Electronic Voting Machines, their uses and advantages. You also came to know how to use EVMs in elections.
Check out ways to track Voter ID card application form online and offline.