How do we vote in India with Electronic Voting machine

Punjab is going to polls during the month of February 2017 ( 4th Feb, 2017 | Saturday ). Elections in Punjab employ Electronic Voting machine(EVM). These machines  are manufactured by  two companies  owned by the defense department.  Some authorised appointed Govt. officers got opportunity to get hands on training in operating the machine as a part of pre election training for polling officials.

There are lots of different positions to work for this system like Presiding Officers, Polling Officers, Supervisors, Micro Observers etc.

The electronic voting machines that use, have two parts :- a control unit and a balloting unit. They are interconnected by a flat ribbon cable of 5m length.

The Indian Electronic Voting machine

The balloting unit enables the voters to cast their votes. Each balloting unit can accommodate 16 candidates. 4 such units can be cascaded and connected to a single control unit.

                   Balloting unit                    :                  Control Unit

The connecting  cable is permanently attached to the balloting unit. It is connected to the control unit via a connector on the rear. Also, the main on off switch is on the rear side of control unit.

The various parts of balloting unit is shown below.

A voter can vote when the ready lamp glows. He can press  the candidate button shown against  his candidate. As soon as the   button press is received the unit produces a long beep sound and the candidate lamp glows.

The  control unit is organized   as shown below.

The control unit  has several functions. These are performed at different points of election process. It is powered by  a  6V rugged battery.  The battery and  candidate set switch are sealed before delivery to the polling station. The polling officials are not supposed to open this section. The candidate  set button can be used to set the number of candidates on the balloting unit. Also the same control unit can be used for 2 simultaneous elections ( ie Parliament elections and  state elections.)

The result section is used for displaying the results, closing the poll and resetting the machine. This section is sealed at the start of the election in the presence of   polling agents.

At the end of the polling the close bottom is pressed and the machine is sealed again. The ballot section on the bottom of the control unit is used  along with the balloting unit. As soon as a voter is identified, the officer in charge of the control unit presses the ballot button. The busy lamp on the top of the control unit glows  along with the ready lamp on the balloting unit. When a voter casts his vote, the busy light goes off.

The total button can be used to find out the number of votes cast at any time.

The polls start at 8 am in the morning and end at  5pm. Before the start of actual  poll, a mock poll will be conducted.  This is to ensure that EVM is not having any preset votes and to make sure that   the machine works as advertised.  The result section will be sealed and signatures of  polling agents and presiding officer  will be affixed on the seal.at this time 

At the end of the polls the close button is pressed. The machine is sealed again and  put into a box and returned to a counting center.