In the last assembly elections in Karnataka in 2018, the Election Commission of India (ECI) piloted a mobile app — cVIGIL. The philosophy behind it was simple: let citizens shoot photos and videos of election code violations and upload the material for immediate action. The first trial was not entirely successful. Hundreds of unwanted uploads — routine rallies, roadshows and even selfies and dances—flooded the system. “However, once citizens understood our intention, things changed from the assembly polls held later that year in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan,” the then chief election commissioner (CEC) OP Rawat tells ET.

He recalls the elections “in the pre-cVIGIL era”. “In the 2016 West Bengal assembly polls, for instance, about 99% of complaints turned out to be baseless. But once complaints and evidence started coming together, more and more cases got registered, FIRs were lodged and culprits were convicted.” Take the Lok Sabha elections of 2019. About 1,42,250 complaints were received through the cVIGIL app of which 99% cases were disposed of and 80% were found to be correct, according to ECI’s data.

cVIGIL is one of about 20 web-based and mobile applications aiding India’s election management process — from voter registration to election results. These include the EVM Management System that maps the inventory of electronic voting machines, the Suvidha Candidate app that eases the procedure for filing nominations, the ENCORE (Enabling Communications on Realtime Environment) portal that facilitates permissions for holding rallies and roadshows, the Booth app for faster identification of voters on voting day and the Voter Turnout app that updates polling stats real time.
India’s election management is reinforced by a host of tech tools and mobile apps. But consensus is missing on the launch of the next generation of electronic voting machines (EVMs) that can enable remote voting and augment India’s near-saturated polling percentage. The prototype of a remote voting machine (RVM), which can handle up to 72 constituencies, has been developed by IITMadras. Remote voting, if agreed upon, could be a tectonic shift in the use of technology in elections.

What has also turned contentious in recent times is the percentage of voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) — basically, a printout of the voter’s choice — that should be counted and matched with EVM results. The VVPAT, introduced on a pilot basis in the Noksen assembly constituency of Nagaland in 2013, helps detect malfunction in a machine or even its manipulation. It is now deployed in every election, mainly to boost trust and confidence among voters. In an assembly poll, VVPAT slips of five randomly selected polling stations of each constituency are counted. In the Lok Sabha elections, a similar exercise is undertaken in five polling stations in each assembly segment.

“Our election philosophy has been, let us use all kinds of modern technology except in the voting process. That’s why we have not considered internet voting,” says former CEC SY Quraishi. “If a simple machine like EVM can be suspected, remote voting will be suspected 10 times more. I feel the time is not ripe for introducing remote voting technology. But on a future date, it may happen,” he says, adding that he is in favour of counting all VVPATs if that brings credibility to the system.

The discussion on remote voting cropped up after the Supreme Court — while hearing the Dr Shamsheer VP vs Union of India case on the alleged denial of voting opportunities to domestic migrants — directed the ECI to explore alternative options in 2015. Meanwhile, the polling percentages seem to have reached a near-saturation point. The 2019 general elections saw a 67.4% voter turnout, a marginal increase from 66.4% in 2014. Who are the close to 300 million electors who did not vote in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019? “More than 30% of Indian voters don’t vote,” says Nasim Zaidi, a former CEC. “It’s often said that this is due to the lethargy of voters, mainly in urban centres. But that is not a correct explanation. The reality is that a major chunk of those who don’t vote are either domestic migrants or non-resident Indians (NRIs). I am optimistic that remote voting will be a reality once the technology is tested and validated.”

In the first Lok Sabha elections of 1952, as many as 173 million Indians registered as electors of whom 45.6% voted. The polling percentage steadily improved over the years but the ECI seems convinced now that the voter turnout is unlikely to rise further. So in December last year, it published a concept paper on remote voting technology, explaining the basic contours of an RVM prototype, also kick-starting a consultation process with political parties, both national and state parties. But political parties rejected the idea, forcing the ECI to put the project into cold storage. ET’s email to ECI on the status of remote voting has not elicited any response.

Former CEC Rawat says remote voting is feasible. “ECI should have done better homework before starting the consultancy process with political parties. It failed to convince the parties,” he says, adding that once electors voluntarily link their voter IDs with Aadhaar, a biometric verification will be enough to identify an elector wishing to vote in another state. Once an elector votes in a specially designed EVM, that machine should be sealed in the presence of representatives of various political parties before dispatching it to the home state where votes should be counted just as it’s done for postal ballots, says Rawat.

He adds that six-seven years ago, ECI had written to the ministry of external affairs (MEA) to figure out the feasibility of remote voting for NRIs in booths set up in Indian missions abroad, a proposal the MEA rejected, possibly to preempt a backlash from nondemocratic nations, particularly in the Middle East, that are friends with New Delhi. “The fear was that many non-democratic countries won’t like the idea of a democratic exercise in their soil.

They won’t like the ‘infection’ to pass on to their citizens,” says Rawat. At present, there are 13.4 million NRIs, according to MEA’s database, of which 3.4 million are in the UAE and 2.5 million in Saudi Arabia — both monarchies. The exact number of NRIs who are eligible to vote is not available nor is the percentage of NRIs who take a flight to India to vote.

The single biggest bottleneck in the introduction of new technologies in voting is trust deficit. The EVM storm has abated in recent years after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lost some fiercely contested assembly elections — for instance, in West Bengal in 2021 and Himachal Pradesh in 2022. But the suspicion of the machine still lingers although it was first piloted over four decades ago, and has been used in all elections since 2000 — in four Lok Sabha and 122 assembly polls. According to ECI data, over 315 crore votes have been cast on EVMs.

Ashutosh Kumar, visiting professor to the TN Seshan chair at the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM), Delhi, says the controversy over EVMs has been orchestrated. “The machine is always a scapegoat. If an opposition party wins, EVM is good; if it loses, EVM is faulty,” he says. For Quraishi, the biggest worry is a return to ballot papers which, he says, will mean “returning to the era of booth capturing”, a menace that Indian voters and the enforcement machinery have begun to forget.

Zaidi argues that the election process in India will march forward and remote voting technology could be a reality someday. “I feel the ECI should continue with its project on remote voting but, first, it should try to build trust among all its stakeholders,” he says. Trust is the sine qua non of any new election technology that could determine the future of 1.4 billion Indians.