India: Election Commission likely to introduce ‘preferred time-slot’ for voters | The Indian Express

Voters could soon be able to book a preferred time-slot in which they would want to cast their votes during elections. With an eye on tackling urban apathy amongst voters and making a serious bid to get more people out of their homes to go to the polling stations to vote, the Election Commission is mulling the possibility of introducing this system. “The idea of letting voters book a time-slot is being deliberated upon,” Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said. A system could be put into place where voters may be given the facility of calling or SMSing to a designated number to book one of the several time-slots on offer on a given voting day. Those who use the facility could be given a reference number that they would need to show to avail of the facility at the booth, EC officials said. A pre-booked time-slot would ensure that a voter gets to vote at the time of his choice without having to stand in a queue, officials added.

India: Government proposes to give voting rights to Non-Resident Indians | The Economic Times

The government today agreed to convene an all-party meeting to discuss its proposal to give NRIs the right to exercise their franchise by e-postal ballots or through proxy voting. Law Minister DV Sadananda Gowda accepted the demand of opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha that their views should be taken into consideration while enacting a legislation to grant voting rights to NRIs and domestic migrant labour. Replying to a calling attention motion moved by Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Law Minister made it clear that the government was acting on the Election Commission report regarding voting rights of over one crore NRIs and not as directed by the Supreme Court.

India: E-voting for Non-Resident Indians too risky, say Rajya Sabha members | The Times of India

Cutting across party lines, members of Rajya Sabha on Tuesday supported the calling attention notice by Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad about the risks involved in giving voting rights to Non-Resident Indians through proxy voting or e-postal ballots. The members also pointed out that government needs to do something about millions of migrant workers who are denied voting rights within the country. Bhupendra Singh, BJP member from Odisha, and NDA leaders like Anil Desai of Shiv Sena and Naresh Gujral of Akali Dal said wider consultation is needed for the proposal of e-ballot for NRIs as it may not be very secure and advised the government not to rush into amending the Representation of People’s Act. They said supremacy of Parliament in framing laws should not be usurped by the Supreme Court.

India: Political Party Advocates the Denial of Voting Rights for Muslims | TIME

A major Indian political party called for the voting rights of Muslims to be revoked in an editorial published Sunday, a statement that was slammed across the board and left its leadership red-faced and hastily backtracking. The editorial was published in Saamana — the mouthpiece of the right-wing Shiv Sena party — and reiterated a statement from its late founder Balasaheb Thackeray that advocated the withdrawal of Muslim people’s right to vote, the Indian Express reported. “If Muslims are being used … to play politics, they can never develop,” the editorial reads. “Balasaheb had once said voting rights of Muslims should be withdrawn. What he said is right.”

India: Election Commission for new machine to enhance voter secrecy | The Economic Times

The Election Commission wants to use a new machine which prevents disclosure of voting pattern during counting to enhance voter secrecy and has received the backing of the Law Commission, but the government is yet to take a final call on the issue. The EC has approached the Law Ministry with a proposal to introduce ‘Totaliser’ machine for counting of votes. The poll panel is of the view that by use of Totaliser, a further level of secrecy in voting and the mixing of votes at the time of counting will be achieved, which will prevent the disclosure of pattern of voting at a particular polling station.

India: Voters, political parties held responsible for rigging | The Express Tribune

While Pakistan’s opposition parties are still arguing about alleged rigging in the 2013 general elections, a former chief election commissioner (CEC) of India has revealed similar stories from the general elections held in his country last year. In his book An Undocumented Wonder: The Making of the Great Indian Election, which juxtaposes the electoral system of India and other countries, Dr SY Quraishi suggests some key electoral reforms to improve the electoral process. He said the 2014 polls had witnessed more violence, hate speeches and violations than the previous elections, adding that many senior leaders had launched a frontal attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI) for all this mess.

India: Arvind Kejriwal Alleges Voting Machines Tampered With to Help BJP | NDTV

Arvind Kejriwal, the chief of the Aam Aadmi Party, today alleged massive tampering of electronic voting machines or EVMs to favour the BJP. The BJP linked his allegation to the funding scandal; AAP has been accused by a group of its former supporters of accepting Rs. 50 lakh from four companies that have no credible finances and appear to be fronts for money laundering. Mr Kejriwal tweeted today that during an inspection in the Delhi Cantonment area on Monday, four machines were found doctored in a way that the result always showed BJP, no matter what party the voters chose.

India: One-third of Delhi voters untraceable | The Hindu

One-third of the people on Delhi’s voter list had moved house, were dead or could not be found, a sample survey has revealed. The findings raise serious questions about the accuracy of the information in Delhi’s voter lists and put in doubt official voter turnout numbers, the researchers said, but were refuted by the Election Commission. Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, a Bangalore-based citizen engagement group, identified a representative sample of 3,210 Delhi voters spread across eight assembly constituencies. They then went to the addresses listed for these voters and attempted to find them. 21 per cent had moved house, the current occupant of the house informed the surveyors. Another one per cent was either dead, a repeated name or as in the case of two voters, in prison. Another 11 per cent could simply not be located despite three attempts. In all, 33 per cent of the sampled voters surveyed was not at the listed location and could potentially need to be deleted, the researchers found.

India: Community divided over citizenship rights | The Hindu

The Election Commission’s recent directive allowing Tibetan refugees to register for voter identity card for Delhi Assembly elections, which will help them acquire Indian citizenship, has not been welcomed by all and created a deep chasm within the exiled community. Those against acquiring citizenship rights argue that the Tibetans living in India must remain refugees as becoming an Indian citizen would “dilute the struggle” for a free Tibet. N. K. Trikha, national convenor of Core Group for Tibetan Cause, a pan-India group which advocates Tibet’s independence from Chinese rule, said, “Acquiring Indian citizenship will knock the bottom out of their reason for living in exile with a determination to return to their motherland or see her become free at some point in time.”

India: Expats To Be Allowed To Vote Through Absentee Ballot, Court Rules | International Business Times

India’s Supreme Court, the country’s highest court, on Monday asked the government to allow Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), or Indian citizens living abroad, to vote remotely. This would mean that Indians living in foreign countries would be allowed to vote from their country of residence. Until now, Indian citizens living abroad have had to travel back home in order to exercise their franchise, something not many people do. India had given voting rights to NRIs in 2010. Under the new system — e-voting — a blank postal ballot paper is emailed to the voter, who has to then fill it and send it to their constituency via post, according to a report by NDTV, a local news network. India already allows on-duty defense personnel and certain categories of government officers and exiled Kashmiri Hindus to cast their vote remotely. The apex court has reportedly said that the proposed e-voting mechanism, which could require a constitutional amendment, should be implemented within eight weeks.

India: Supreme Court gives Non-Resident Indians the right to vote, but internal migrants are unable to do so | Scroll.in

Even as the Supreme Court ordered the Central government on Monday to give Non-Resident Indians e-voting rights within eight weeks to allow them to cast their ballots without travelling physically to their constituencies, it did not mention any such provision for the millions of migrant workers within India who remain removed from the voting process. Internal migrants cannot vote unless they travel back to their home constituencies. The expense of this prevents a great many migrants from voting. But perhaps a discussion on the question of voting rights of internal migrants was not within the court’s purview in this instance. On November 14 last year, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to state its position on the Election Commission’s proposal to allow NRIs proxy voting through e-ballots.  On Monday, the Centre told the court that it had decided to accept the recommendations.   Under this plan, blank postal ballots will be transferred electronically to NRIs, who will post them back to the authorities in their constituencies.

India: Non Resident Indians Must be Allowed to e-Vote Within 8 Weeks, Orders Supreme Court | NDTV

Non Resident Indians or NRIs will soon be able to cast their vote from abroad through electronic ballot, without having to make a trip during elections. The Supreme Court today directed the central government to allow e-voting by NRIs within eight weeks. This comes days after the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas at Gandhinagar in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat, where the government reached out to the Indian diaspora and promised them more rights and opportunities. The government told the court today that it has accepted an Election Commission report recommending e-ballot voting for Indian passport holders abroad and it would have the process in place after amending laws. The court said e-voting should be allowed at the earliest.

India: Election Commission to check bogus voting, link Aadhaar with electoral rolls | Hindustan Times

To check bogus voting, the Election Commission (EC) on Friday decided to use a person’s 12-digit biometric-based Aadhaar number while updating electoral rolls across India. “We have held discussions with the unique identification authority on leveraging Aadhaar database to check bogus voting,” an EC functionary said. The process in Delhi is likely to start after the Delhi assembly elections. Once Aadhaar numbers are linked to electoral rolls, the EC will have biometric reading machines at polling booths for online authentication of voters before they are allowed to vote. The machines will be connected to the Aadhaar database for biometric authentication. The government has already decided to enrol all eligible persons above the age of five for Aadhaar by March 2015. This would mean that every voter by then will have an Aadhaar number and the EC will demand the number while updating the electoral rolls.

India: Impressive Turnout in Jammu and Kashmir as Voters Defy Boycott Call | The New Indian Express

People braved a separatist boycott call and inclement weather to cast their ballots in the second phase of Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections Tuesday. The army foiled an infiltration bid on the Line of Control (LoC) in Kupwara district Tuesday morning, on a day when voters of this border district were queueing up at polling booths. An official said a group of five to eight heavily armed guerrillas made an infiltration bid in Nowgam area of the LoC. Three militants were killed in a gunfight between the security forces and the infiltrators. At Kupwara town, barely 40 km from the site of the gunfight, voters stood in long lines to cast their franchise. People were calm and waited patiently for their turn to vote. Accompanying children played cricket at a polling station, unperturbed by the militant firing.

India: The dynamics of an unusual Jammu and Kashmir election | The Asian Age

The encouraging 71 per cent voter turnout in the first phase of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly poll plus the violence-free atmosphere in which the election campaign is being conducted is a thumbs-up for Indian democracy. Whether the active engagement of voters with the democratic process was a result of widespread anti-incumbency will be known once the votes are counted on December 23. In the absence of opinion and exit polls, the analyst is obliged to rely on media reportage and anecdotal evidence. These indicate three broad developments. First, it is likely that the People’s Democratic Party led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his feisty daughter Mehbooba Mufti will be the principal gainer in the 46 seats of Kashmir. It is entirely possible that the National Conference led by chief minister Omar Abdullah and his Congress ally may experience a total rout in the Valley. Second, it seems that the fear of an ascendant Bharatiya Janata Party and the possibility of a chief minister from the Jammu region have motivated many of those loosely associated with the parties of the Hurriyat Conference to break ranks and participate in the voting. Finally, it appears that the BJP has made huge inroads in the state where it won three of the six Lok Sabha seats in the general election. The BJP’s gain in Jammu will primarily be at the cost of the Congress and NC. In addition, the BJP has forcefully registered its presence in Ladakh and may even be in the running in six constituencies in the Kashmir Valley.

India: Thousands vote in Indian Kashmir amid boycott call | Associated Press

Thousands of Kashmiris cast votes in state elections Tuesday despite a boycott call by Muslim separatist groups that reject India’s sovereignty over the disputed Himalayan region. Voter turnout was high at 70 percent despite cold temperatures and overcast skies, the Election Commission said. It described the first phase of the elections as “flawless” with no incidents marring the polls. Paramilitary soldiers and police officers patrolled near polling stations. Long lines of voters stretched around polling booths in Ganderbal and Bandipora, north of the main city of Srinagar.

India: Protest to Election Commission over electronic voting machines | The Indian Express

A routine administrative move by the Election Commission of India, to shift electronic voting machines (EVMs) from Gujarat to Jammu and Kashmir for the Assembly polls there, has taken a surprise political turn. The controversy started with rumours that the EVMs had been “manufactured” in Gujarat and were programmed to ensure the BJP’s victory in the polls. Despite the EC clarifying that this was not true, and that the machines were only being moved for operational reasons, many in the Valley remain unconvinced. “We have to be doubly sure. The people of J&K are already asking why EVMs are being brought from Gujarat. An NGO created quite a stir by claiming that these machines could be tampered with,” J&K Congress president Saifuddin Soz told The Indian Express.

India: Chief Election Commissioner Says Secrecy in Online Vote Not Possible | The New Indian Express

Chief Election Commissioner, V S Sampath, said secrecy cannot be maintained in the online voting system. He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the south zone symposium on ‘Best Electoral Practices’, organised by the ECI, here on Friday. Sampath said the government of India has now extended the voting rights to NRIs and a committee has been formed to examine the feasibility of using online voting and postal ballot for them to register their votes. Sounding a caution about online voting, he said, it should be approached carefully. “In the present system, each polling booth is sanitised so that the voters can vote in an atmosphere without fear. But it is possible that the voters using the online voting system may be threatened.”

India: Election Commission wants to use new machine to enhance vote secrecy | Zee News

The Election Commission wants to use a new machine to enhance secrecy of votes during counting which prevents disclosure of voting pattern. The Election Commission has moved the Law Ministry with a proposal for introduction of ‘Totaliser’ machine for counting of votes. The poll panel is of the view that by use of ‘Totaliser’, a further level of secrecy in voting and the mixing of votes at the time of counting will be achieved, which will prevent the disclosure of pattern of voting at a particular polling station. The Law Ministry is the administrative ministry for the poll body. But the government has not taken a considered view on introduction of the machine.

India: Election Commission may opt for Gujarat online model for NRI voting | The Economic Times

Non-resident Indians (NRIs) keen on voting in this year’s general election could only do so if they had registered back home and were present in the constituency on the day of balloting. This meant that few could be part of the exercise. The Election Commission of India is now examining the Gujarat model of local body elections as it looks for options to enable NRIs to cast their vote from overseas. Gujarat implemented the country’s first internet voting initiative during the Gandhinagar municipal corporation elections in April 2011. A committee constituted by the poll panel to explore how best NRIs can participate in elections is studying the model.

India: US scientists ‘hack’ India electronic voting machines | Bhatkallys

Scientists at a US university say they have developed a technique to hack into Indian electronic voting machines. After connecting a home-made device to a machine, University of Michigan researchers were able to change results by sending text messages from a mobile. Indian election officials say their machines are foolproof, and that it would be very difficult even to get hold of a machine to tamper with it. India uses about 1.4m electronic voting machines in each general election. A video posted on the internet by the researchers at the University of Michigan purportedly shows them connecting a home-made electronic device to one of the voting machines used in India. Professor J Alex Halderman, who led the project, said the device allowed them to change the results on the machine by sending it messages from a mobile phone.

India: Ruling Party Concedes Defeat | VoA News

Opposition candidate Narendra Modi will be the next prime minister of India, with early election results on Friday showing the pro-business Hindu nationalist and his party headed for the biggest victory the country has seen in 30 years. India’s ruling Congress party conceded defeat Friday. Congress party spokesmen told reporters the party had accepted that the country decided to vote against them. The alliance led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was winning the vote count in 325 parliamentary seats, far more than the majority of 272 required to rule. Even on its own, the BJP was ahead in 273 seats. The United Progressive Alliance led by the Gandhi family’s Congress party, which has ruled India for the last decade, was leading in just 67 seats – its worst-ever showing.

India: Highest-ever voter turnout recorded in 2014 polls | Times of India

The 2014 Lok Sabha election, which finally drew to a close on Monday, has earned the distinction of recording the highest voter turnout ever at 66.4%. This surpasses the 64% polling witnessed in the 1984 polls, held in extraordinary circumstances following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and makes the 58.2% turnout of 2009 pale in comparison. This general election cost the government Rs 3,426 crore, which is 131% more than the Rs 1,483 crore spent on the 2009 polls. Apart from inflation, which has soared over the last five years, the Election Commission on Monday attributed the surge in poll costs to its rising spend on new measures including the voter awareness initiative titled Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP). Interestingly, the first Lok Sabha polls in 1952 had cost just Rs 10.45 crore.

India: How Secure Are India’s Elections? | Cleo Paskal/Huffington Post

According to exit polls, Narendra Modi is likely to be declared the next Prime Minister of India. The only thing that might stand in his way is an electronic voting machine (EVM). The problems with EVM security have been widely known since the large-scale irregularities in Florida during the 2000 elections. Many countries have moved to get rid of them. In 2006 Dutch TV aired a documentary showing how easy it was to hack the EVMs that were about to be used in their general election. The machines were subsequently withdrawn and the Netherlands went back to paper ballots. Germany has declared EVMs unconstitutional. And, after spending close to $75 million on its EVMs, Ireland found them to be so insecure they literally scrapped them.

India: Votes for Sale: India’s Election Problem | Wall Street Journal

The big question for some voters as India’s marathon national election reaches its final stages isn’t who will win, it is how much candidates will dole out in cash, alcohol and other goodies to bag their support. Residents and election officials alike say vote-buying has long been a problem in the world’s largest democracy, even though it is against the law. Early reports suggest it may be widespread again in the current round, which began April 7 and ends Monday. Results are expected four days later. In the northern state of Punjab, for instance, election-monitoring teams have seized over 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of heroin, 50 kilograms of opium and thousands of liters of illicit alcohol that they believe may have been meant for buying votes. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, police are investigating possible criminal charges against the wife of a candidate who was caught carrying $75,000 in cash in a computer bag while traveling on a public bus to her husband’s constituency. The woman denied any wrongdoing.

India: Tibetans-in-exile divided over right to vote in Indian elections | The Guardian

The Indian election reaches the de facto capital of Tibetans-in-exile on Wednesday as members of the community in Dharamsala are given the right to vote for the first time. But the decision to grant voting rights to all people of Tibetan origin born in India between 1950 and 1987 has divided the exile community. While some have welcomed the move and registered to vote, many see it as a blow to more than 50 years of struggle that could diminish their chance of returning to their homeland. Tenzin Tsundue, an exiled Tibetan poet and activist, said: “We are not immigrants, but political refugees waiting to return home. We cannot settle in exile; our rights are in Tibet, not in India. Indian citizenship may be personally beneficial, but it will leave us divided, culturally diluted and finally get us killed by complacency.” Narendar Chauhan, chief electoral officer for Himachal Pradesh, which includes Dharamsala and votes on Wednesday, said that just over 1,200 people of Tibetan origin had registered to vote, though the number in the state who applied to vote but failed to meet the conditions was three times that. Around 48,000 out of an estimated 120,000 – one-third resident in Himachal Pradesh – were made eligible to vote by the rule change.

India: The Device that Runs the World’s Biggest Election | New York Times

Thanks to a device that is the size and shape of a mini piano keyboard, India can boast that the country’s voters, all 814.5 million of them in 543 constituencies, can cast their ballot electronically, even in areas that have just one person. The 1.8 million electronic voting machines being used in this year’s elections, manufactured by Bharat Electronics and Electronic Corporation of India, both government companies, have been designed to adapt to the logistical challenges in India, where roads can be nonexistent and the electricity supply erratic. The machines are small enough to carry by hand and require only a six-volt alkaline battery. With one-third of India’s adult population illiterate, the voting machines feature both a list of candidates’ names and their party symbol. “The introduction of electronic voting machine was India’s biggest electoral reform,” said Manohar Singh Gill, India’s former chief election commissioner who supervised the 1999 election, the last one that used paper ballots. “The biggest disputes in paper ballots used to be on which vote is invalid and which is not. Recounting used to take days, and more disputes would emerge.”

India: Election ‘well-managed’ despite alleged voter fraud | The Globe and Mail

As marathon national elections in the world’s most populous democracy head into their final phase, the Election Commission and local media are reporting dozens of cases of alleged vote fraud, and tens of thousands of names missing from voter lists in the country’s biggest city. But officials say that over all, with more than 815 million eligible voters casting ballots over a five-week period that began April 7, the elections are remarkably trouble free. “Certain questionable practices and people are expected to show up during elections,” said T. S. Krishna Murthy, former chief election commissioner who was in charge of the 2004 parliamentary elections. “But the Election Commission has managed to deal with them well. By and large, the elections are well-managed.” Still there have been complaints of proxy voting and of political parties using money and muscle to rig the outcome of elections, as well as regular reports that thousands of names are missing from the voters’ lists.

India: Chaos in India after rats chew electronic vote-counting machines | CITI

Rats have caused chaos in the latest round of voting in elections in India after they destroyed dozens of  electronic vote counting machines  by eating the cables. With more than 800 million voters, India uses the machines to reduce the time in declaring results compared to the old paper ballot system. But voters in Ghaziabad, a town close to the capital New Delhi, were furious when told that rats had  ruined the machines, which were stored in a strongroom near a wholesale wheat market. The voting machines were attacked by rats in Ghaziabad, which is on the outskirts of New Dehli.

India: Missing names, faulty Electronic Voting Machines criticised | Deccan Chronicle

Voters lamenting that their names were missing from the electoral rolls was again a common sight across many polling stations in the city. Several people who had voted in the last election found their names missing from the voters’ list for no apparent reason. V. Ramesh, an APSRTC employee in Khairatabad constituency said, “I was out of town for a brief period and now my name is not there.” Engineering student Meghna wrote to this newspaper claiming, “I was unable to vote because of the sheer negligence of the government officers. Polling stations don’t have the list of newly registered voters.” Even IAS officer T. Radha found his name dropped from the list. Several people tried calling the toll free number of the Chief Electoral Officer, but it was unreachable. Some 300 voters from Pedda Bazaar, Chinna Bazaar and Veerabhadraiahnagar could not vote as their names were not there on the list, though they have cards.