How EVMs Record Your Vote And Add Them All Up In India's 2019 General Election

With the 2019 elections currently underway, some of you may have already gone out and cast your ballot.

But how much do you really know about the machine that you trust with casting your vote for the leaders that will set policies for the next few years? Here's a quick primer.

What is an EVM?

An EVM is an electronic voting machine that replaced the older paper-driven ballot boxes in 1982. It consists of a simple box housing the circuitry that displays the name and symbol of each one of the candidates next to a button.

The voter simply has to press the button next to the candidate of their choice and their vote is cast, and the machine locks itself to prevent you from casting multiple votes. The next voter can only cast their vote using their uniquely assigned ballot number.

It's important to note that the piece you interact with is only one half of the EVM, called the balloting unit. That is connected by cable to the other half, the control unit. The entire device also doesn't run on electricity, to prevent any accidental loss of votes or delays in case of a power failure. Instead it functions entirely on a battery.

What's the point of an EVM?

The most obvious benefit to using an EVM instead of a paper ballot system is that we're not wasting a tonne of paper. The process is also limited to a single button click for the voter, meaning there's less chance of confusion.

As of 2013, the Election Commission also introduced the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system. With this, voters receive a sort of printed out receipt directly from the machine after they cast their vote, so they can double check that the vote was recorded for the right candidate.

Another benefit is that everything goes so much faster, both the actually voting and the tallying thereafter. Thanks to all of this, EVMs have saved a tonne of money too, more than the initial Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 investment per device.

How does it work?

Each of these balloting units can accommodate voting for up to 16 candidates. If there are ever more than that number in a constituency, these balloting units can be synced up together in a recurring fashion. This can go up to 24 Balloting units synced to one control, supporting a maximum of 384 candidates.

Additionally, to prevent tampering, the EVM is powered by a one-time programmable chip that can't be rewritten or erased. It's also kept airgapped, meaning it can't be connected to the Internet, or for that matter even USB and Bluetooth.

Are there safety measures?

When it comes to tallying all this up, the EC has election officials gather the EVM control units in a specially allotted counting hall in each constituency. Tables here are alloted for overseers, while the rest are occupied by counting officials, as well as a counting supervisor and assistant for each table.

When the counting units are brought to the tables here, the balloting units are not with them. Is is to prevent the data of votes stored within the counting units from being changed in any way. It's capable of retaining this data for up to 10 years. The units are also sealed after voting ends, so those seals and the serial number on them are checked at this point for tampering.

The unit also has a built-in tally system, that needs to be specially activated at a counting house. There it tallies up the votes entered into it for each candidate in about 20 seconds. However, officials need to manually not down these results for a later tally, as they're displayed one at a time for each candidate.

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