Chief election commissioner (CEC) said that ‘remote voting’ facility, enabling persons who cannot be at their polling booths on election day for different reasons, to exercise their franchise from a remote location, may be offered in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, with first pilot project likely to start in the next 2-3 months.
Remote Voting Facility is a voting facility enabled for voter to cast his or her vote from any polling station in the country. The project is being developed by the IIT-Madras using blockchain technology.
The Remote Voting Facility will remove the compulsion on voting only at the domicile polling station. (As the voter is registered in his domicile).
The voter turn in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was 67.11% across 542 constituencies. The RVF can increase the voter turnout in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
Individuals who are ‘on the move’ like students, patients, migrant labourers, essential service providers, etc. will become part of the electoral process.
RVF gives more flexibility to voters. An individual can cast his/her vote from multiple locations and not solely from one registered polling station.
RVF will give a voice to unheard groups like migrant workers. The contesting candidates generally did not concern with them, as they will not vote in elections.
RVF will ensure more eligible voters cast their vote. Thus, it will help in fulfilling the ambition of the representative democracy.
Article 326 of the Indian Constitution has given voting rights to every individual above 18 years i.e. universal adult suffrage. The spirit of this article calls for ensuring universal voter turnout in elections and RVF can help us move closer towards this.
Blockchain is a system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system.
A blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain.
The data exists on multiple computers at the same time. It constantly grows as new sets of recordings or blocks get added to it in a decentralization manner.
The main issue regarding to the Remote Voting Facility is Cyber Threats. As RVF is based on blockchain, therefore it might be attacked by hackers which would distort the final result.
The process involves saving a user’s biometrics and facial data. Any misuse of such by concerned authorities or hackers would undermine the right to privacy.
Nowadays, political parties and candidates are questioning the credibility of EVMs. Instilling trust over RVF will be a challenging task.
As the RVF facility will be availed in front of an authorized officer, the secrecy of the voting process might get jeopardized.