SHILLONG, Dec 29: The Election Commission has come up with a “Multi-Constituency Remote Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) which will facilitate the participation of domestic migrants in the voting process wherever they are.
The EC tied up with a well-known public sector undertaking as it came up with the multi-constituency remote EVM. The Commission is ready to pilot it.
This modified form of EVM can handle up to 72 multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth. The initiative, if implemented, can lead to a social transformation for the migrants and connect them with their roots as they are often found not so keen on getting themselves enrolled at their place of work for various reasons such as frequently changing residences, not enough social and emotional connect with the issues of area of migration, unwillingness to get their names deleted in electoral roll of their home/native constituencies as they have permanent residence/property etc.
The Commission has invited “all the eight recognised national and 57 state political parties” on January 16 to demonstrate the functioning of the multi-constituency prototype remote EVM.
The Commission has solicited written views from the recognised political parties by January 31, 2023 on various related issues, including changes required in legislation, changes in administrative procedures and voting method/EVM/technology, if any other, for the domestic migrants.
Based on the feedback and demonstration of the prototype, the Commission will appropriately carry forward the process of implementing remote voting methods.
Migration-based disenfranchisement is indeed not an option in the age of technological advancement. The voter turnout in the general elections of 2019 was 67.4% and the EC is concerned about the issue of over 30 crore electors not exercising their franchise and also differential voter turnout in various states/UTs. It is understood that there are multifarious reasons for a voter not opting to register in a new place of residence, thus missing out on exercising the right to vote.
Inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migrants) is one of the prominent reasons to be addressed to improve voter turnout and ensure participative elections.
Although there is no central database available for migration within the country, the analysis of available data in public domain points to work, marriage and education-related migration as important factors of domestic migration. Out-migration is predominant among rural population in overall domestic migration. Approximately 85% of the internal migration is within the states.
Soon after assuming office as the Chief Election Commissioner, Rajiv Kumar’s learning of domestic migration issues first-hand from his trek to Dumak village in Chamoli district focused his attention on enabling the migrant voters to exercise their franchise from their current place of residence. Realising such empowerment would entail a host of legal, statutory, administrative and technological interventions, the ECI deliberated at length to find inclusive solutions for facilitating electoral participation of migrants across all socio-economic strata and explored alternative voting methods like two-way physical transit postal ballots, proxy voting, early voting at special Early Voting Centres, one-way or two-way electronic transmission of postal ballots, Internet-based voting system etc.
With the objective of finding a technological solution which is credible, accessible and acceptable to all stakeholders, the Commission has now explored the option of using a modified version of the time-tested model of M3 EVMs to enable voting at remote polling stations i.e., polling stations outside home constituency, for domestic migrants. The migrant voter would thus need not travel back to his/her home district to exercise his/her franchise.
