Polling for 2019 general elections will be conducted through paper trail-based electronic voting machines to “enhance transparency”. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi also said that voting through the internet is not on EC’s agenda in the near future though it is going to use information and communication technology (ICT) in a big way to reach the voters in the coming days. “We have reached a stage where people are demanding hundred per cent deployment of paper audit trail machine. We have preserved the secrecy (in this system) as well. Our plan is that by 2019, the whole country will be covered by paper audit trail machines. The budget for this has been committed now,” Zaidi said while addressing an international seminar today. The next general elections are due in 2019.
… While the poll watchdog is taking full advantage of ICT for “recommending legislation” on providing electronic postal ballot facility to overseas Indian voters, the CEC said the same confidence cannot be expressed at present in the context of internet voting owing to security concerns.
For e-postal ballot, Zaidi said a “safe technology” has been developed and it is being “validated and tested currently….”
Full Article: 2019 general elections to have paper-trail electronic voting machines: Nasim Zaidi, CEC – The Economic Times.