Beyond EVMs |
The recent fire in Kolkata that reportedly damaged thousands of Electronic Voting Machines has triggered predictable reactions. Some see it as an unfortunate accident. Others see reasons for suspicion. Investigations will determine what happened. Yet the larger lesson of the episode may lie elsewhere. The real question is not whether the fire was accidental or deliberate.
It is why so much of India’s electoral verification architecture continues to depend on physical storage, physical custody and manual processes long after votes have been electronically recorded. For years, public debate over elections has revolved around a single issue: can EVMs be trusted? The argument has often reduced a complex process to a binary choice between complete faith and complete distrust. Lost in that debate is a more important question. Even if one assumes that EVMs function exactly as intended, why does the subsequent chain of tabulation, verification and record preservation still rely so heavily on human intervention?
India has successfully digitised the act of voting. Yet critical stages that follow remain surprisingly analogue. Vote totals displayed on control units are manually entered into records, consolidated........