NEW DELHI, 30 Dec: In a major move to increase voter participation, the Election Commission (EC) on Thursday said it has developed a prototype of a remote electronic voting machine (RVM) for domestic migrant voters and has invited political parties for a demonstration on 16 January.
If implemented after consultation with the stakeholders, migrant voters do not need to travel to their home districts to exercise their franchise.
Based on feedback from various stakeholders and the demonstration of the prototype, the EC will appropriately carry forward the process of implementing remote voting, according to an EC statement.
The poll panel has also floated a concept note on remote voting and sought the views of political parties on the legal, administrative and technical challenges in implementing it.
The multi-constituency remote EVM, developed by a public sector undertaking, can handle up to 72 constituencies from a single remote polling booth, the statement issued by the poll watchdog said.
“After focus on youth and urban apathy, remote voting will be a transformational initiative for strengthening participation in electoral democracy,” Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar said.
With the objective of finding a technological solution that is credible, accessible and acceptable to all stakeholders, the commission, headed by Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel “has now explored the option of using a modified version of the time-tested model of M3 (Mark 3) EVMs to enable voting at remote polling stations – polling stations outside home constituency, for domestic migrants,” the statement said.
The initiative, if implemented, can lead to a “social transformation” for migrants, it said.
“Many a time, migrants are reluctant to get themselves enroled at their places of work for various reasons, such as frequently changing residences, not enough social and emotional connect with the issues of area of migration, unwillingness to get their names deleted from an electoral roll of their home or native constituencies as they have permanent residence or property,” the poll panel said.
Elaborating on the concept note, the EC said it has invited all eight recognised national and 57 state political parties on 16 January to demonstrate the functioning of the multi-constituency prototype RVM. Members of the commission’s technical expert committee will also be present.
The commission has also solicited written views from recognised political parties by 31 January on various related issues, including changes required in legislation, changes in administrative procedures, and voting method for domestic migrants.
The voter turnout in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was 67.4 percent, and the EC was concerned over the issue of over 30 crore electors not exercising their franchise and also differential voter turnout in various states and union territories, it said.