Evm Or Vvpat

Elections in India is conducted through Electronic Voting Machines for 30 years. Till then only ballot papers were used. But there were many malpractices like vote rigging, booth capturing that Election Commission of India decided alternate and better way of using voting.So, here we will be discussing merits and demerits of EVM and ballot paper and try to find out which one is better.

Merits & Demerits of Paper Ballot

Merits

1. No Chance of Hacking
Ballot papers cannot be hacked. They cannot be changed to give some desired outcome. There is technology or electronic wiring that can be tampered with by an individual or a group of experts for that matter to give a favorable result.

Demerits

1. Wastage of Paper

With a country like India which has around 1.3 billion population conducting elections on ballot papers would result in huge wastage of paper.The votes cast are counted manually and is a tough and error prone job. It takes 3-4 days in counting the votes of the overall constituency.

EVM: Merits & Demerits

Merits

1. Increased Efficiency

With EVMs, the election system has become more efficient. Whether it in terms of faster result announcement, or elimination of miscounting of votes or the simplicity of the vote casting method, the system has become faster and more trustworthy.

2. Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)

The VVPAT was introduced by election commission so that people can see the vote they have casted went to the right party and person. The purpose of using VVPATS is to create trust in the people regarding EVMs.

Demerits:

1. Malfunctioning

At many places during elections malfunctioning of EVM are reported which hinders the process and stops the voting for a few hours.One cannot deny the possibility of EVM tampering because it passes through many intermediaries before reaching to its voting place.

3. EVM Hacking in Future

EVM is a technological gadget similar to mobile phones and laptops so if they can be hacked then there is also a possibility of EVM hacking.Well both EVM and ballot paper have some merits and demerits but as per the technological demand use of EVM is considered better because there is no such incident that occurred in the past by which people can suspect EVMs.