Election Commission to quickly start mock trials for distant voting: CEC

Mock trails for distant voting facility for electors would start quickly, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora has mentioned.
In his message to mark the eleventh National Voters’ Day, he mentioned a analysis mission on distant voting utilizing cutting-edge expertise has already begun.
“There has been a good progress in this regard and mock trials will begin soon,” Arora mentioned on Sunday, including the ballot panel’s proposal to increase postal poll facility for abroad Indian voters is beneath energetic consideration of the Law Ministry.
The Election Commission has collaborated with IIT-Madras to work on a brand new expertise which is able to permit electors to vote from faraway cities with out going to designated polling station of their constituencies.
Explaining the ‘blockchain’ expertise concerned within the mission, former Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Sandeep Saxena had earlier mentioned the idea is a “two-way electronic voting system in a controlled environment on white-listed IP devices on dedicated Internet lines enabled with biometric devices and a web camera”.
Saxena, nonetheless, made it clear that voters should attain a delegated venue throughout a pre-decided time period to have the ability to use this facility.
“It doesn’t imply voting from residence. After a voter’s id is established by the system, a blockchain-enabled personalised e-ballot paper can be generated.
“When the vote is cast, the ballot will be securely encrypted and a blockchain hashtag generated. This hashtag notification will be sent to various stakeholders, in this case the candidates and political parties,” the official mentioned.
The encrypted distant votes so solid will as soon as once more be validated on the pre-counting stage to make sure that they’ve neither been decrypted nor tampered with or changed.

“Suppose there is a Lok Sabha election and a Chennai voter is in Delhi. Instead of returning to vote in his or her constituency or missing out on voting, the voter can reach a pre-designated spot set up by the EC, say in Connaught Place, in a particular time window and can cast his vote,” Saxena had mentioned.

He mentioned such voters might have to use prematurely to their returning officers to train the choice.