In a shift in the voting process, the Bihar State Election Commission has decided to implement the e-voting system and use it with an Android-based mobile. Bihar will be the first state in the country to implement a revolutionary change in the voting process. In an interview with Akashvani News, State Election Commissioner Deepak Prasad said that the project will begin with the municipal and urban body polls in the state on 28th June. Mr Prasad said that the entire e-voting process will take place through two mobile apps called “e-Voting SECBHR”, one developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the second by the Bihar State Election Commission.
The state election Commissioner said that so far 10,000 electorates registered for e-voting and 50 thousand electorates will be able to cast their vote via e-voting, avoiding going to polling booths. He said that the biggest benefit of this initiative will be in many aspects. He said migrant labourers, migrant voters, divyang voters, pregnant female voters, elderly and senior citizens, and seriously ill electorates will have the capacity to vote using the e-voting process. The SEC said that it will help to increase voter turnout and make elections more rounded towards inclusivity. He said that fool-proofing from an e-voting digital security perspective has been taken care of.
Inclusive Voting: Reaching the Unreachable
The new system is designed to include citizens who traditionally face difficulties in voting due to physical or logistical barriers. As Commissioner Prasad stated, the e-voting initiative aims to empower:
- Migrant labourers and voters
- Persons with disabilities (Divyang voters)
- Pregnant women
- Senior citizens
- Seriously ill individuals
Digital Security and Transparency
The e-voting system will have features like a blockchain platform, liveness detection, face match, live face scan, and face comparison, making the voting tamper-proof. Like EVMs feature of VVPAT, an audit trail has also been put in place in the e-voting process.
