Conduct mock e-voting exercise before actual poll: HC directs govt

In connection with introduction of e-voting or online voting system during coming civic body elections, Gujarat High Court has advised the state government to go for a trial mock election before actual election to ensure that the process of online voting is 100 per cent foolproof.

When the hearing came up on the PIL filed by Congressmen raising doubts on efficacy of the new mode of casting vote, a bench headed by Chief Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya observed that the experimentation should not be done during the election process. In case of any trouble in casting vote through internet or mobile phone, the entire exercise of conducting election will suffer. Therefore, if the authorities want to experiment to see that the system functions in proper manner, it has to be much before the actual election.
The Congress leaders have claimed in their PIL that e-voting system to be implemented through recent amendments in the BPMC Act is in violation of fundamental rights granted by the Constitution. Hence the authorities should be restricted from allowing citizens to cast their votes online through mobile or internet.
The PIL has also claimed that online voting system could infringe the element of secrecy maintained in electoral process. It has been contended that free and fair elections as well as secrecy of ballet is granted as fundamental rights in Article 19(1)(g) of the constitution.
However, in the registration process of e-voter, a person is given biometric card and a password. While casting a vote, there will be no control of election commission, and there are chances of coercion and influencing the voters, the petition stated.
The petition has also contended that there is no provision to verify the voting done online. Moreover, secrecy cannot be maintained in e-voting as the services of a private service provider will be availed in this process. There is also no safety contemplated in e-voting so far as identity of voter is concerned, because the voter was expected to cast his vote from either home or cyber cafe or from mobile. In this situation, it was difficult to find out true identity of the voter and there were chances of dummy voters participating in electoral process.
Further hearing on this issue has been kept on August 27.