EVMs also greatly reduce the opportunity for local goons to grab hundred of ballots, stamp them and stuff them into the boxes in a few minutes. EVMs will allow only 5 votes to be cast per minute. Also a stolen BU is no issue as the CU holds all the records.

Contrary to elitist apprehensions, India’s unlettered masses have taken well to the use of BU. They pick the symbol of their choice, press a button and wait for a blue glow and a beep to be sure they have recorded their vote. No more precision stamping and folding of yard long paper in a precise manner and inserting it into a narrow slot.

As a wrongly folded or stamped paper was an invalid vote, EVMs have cut invalids completely. Also counting and announcing of results is a matter of 2 or 3 hours as against the earlier 24 to 30 hours. All ye who would call India ‘backward’, pause to recall the drama and primitiveness of vote counting in the Bush-Gore elections in the US four years ago.

Formal rituals devised by the Commission have inspired the confidence of all Indians in EVMs. At each polling station, the presiding officer proves to candidates’ agents, that the machine’s memory is blank. Then he conducts a mock poll involving the agents. Once they are satisfied, polling commences. At the end of the day the ‘total count’ is displayed to them and recorded. The BU and CU are detached and packed separately so that no further polling can take place. While counting the total is tallied and the whole data is cascaded upward to a mother machine. [Learn more about EVM use]

The current elections will be electronic for other reasons as well. TV channels’ involvement is of course old news. This time, cell phones and email will be extensively used. Also some candidates have started a trend to set up their own web sites [for example see this]. The Election Commission is doing what it can. What is left is for apathetic Indians to get pro-active and do their bit about the woes of India’s politics and politicians, they endlessly grumble about. Sucheta Dalal, a renowned campaigner for fair play in business says, “people must come forward and volunteer 2/3 hours per week of their time to help update voter lists, create awareness about issues, evaluate candidates’ background and so on.”

To return to our little darling, the EVM, it is also proving to be good business for BEL and ECIL; they are working overtime to meet the Commission’s huge orders. The quiet men who developed it are aglow because many countries have evinced interest in buying them. Maybe the US should outsource the running of their coming elections as well.