Challenges and Solutions in Implementing E-voting in India

Challenges and Solutions in Implementing E-voting in India

When we think of elections, we think of the involvement of massive amounts of money and people to conduct them and select a democratic candidate who will represent the RWA society, corporation, or country. The traditional form of voting used a lot of resources, including manpower, money, paper, as well as storage for large EVMs and ballot boxes. But with the advent of e-voting in India, elections have become more efficient, accessible, and transparent across many arenas. However, there are several challenges that need to be addressed when implementing E-voting in a large country like India, where digital illiteracy is very common.

Let us consider several challenges that need to be addressed before e-voting can be used on a large scale in India. Also, solutions are added with each problem related to e-voting.

1.   Digital divide

Many citizens who live in rural and remote areas of India have little access to 24 hours of Wi-Fi from the ease of their homes. Although our country is a developing one, basic amenities like electricity and Wi-Fi have not been able to reach the small villages and remote areas, so improving infrastructure and expanding broadband coverage is a solution to such problems. After that, e-voting can be established in the country in a full circle and in all regions.

2.   Low digital literacy

A significant portion of the Indian population is illiterate in terms of digital and technical skills. To make online voting reach every household, these skills need to be imparted to every corner of the country. Conducting a digital literacy campaign is a solution to this problem. It may provide clear instructions regarding the use of technology for voting and selecting their favourite candidate. These instructions can be imparted using multilingual instructions, and the user interface must also be friendly and simple to use. This will help every voter to enjoy the online voting system with confidence.

3. Cyber security threats

E-voting platforms can easily be hacked and face malware attacks or phishing. These cyber threats are very common in the digital world where hackers are everywhere behind the screens. To stop cybersecurity threats from penetrating the online voting portal, the use of end-to-end encryption is necessary. Continuous monitoring is also a way to strengthen cybersecurity and stop the data breaches that could compromise the integrity of the elections. Also, authentic regular audits are mandatory to keep such threats at bay.

4. Identity verification

The traditional voting system faced difficulty when false voters used to cast their vote, and the voting inspectors could not identify those spurious voters. It is important to ensure that only eligible voters are allowed to cast their precious vote. The traditional system used many measures to address this concern. The online voting system is secure and authentic and allows only Aadhaar-linked verification of the eligible voter. It is stated that only biometric verification and OTP-based authentic voting are allowed in e-voting. Thus, it ensures the privacy protection of each voter also.

5. Vote secrecy

Vote secrecy or anonymity means that the vote of the candidate is not linked to the result. Thus, a secret ballot was used in a traditional voting system where there were no names written on the ballot paper. In e-voting, a cryptographic technique is useful to maintain vote secrecy, as the vote is not linked to the voter after the voting is done. Thus, voter anonymity is maintained in an electronic voting system.

6. Lack of public trust

Another obstacle in e-voting is the lack of public trust that citizens may face. The citizens sometimes hesitate to trust this system, as it involves manipulation or technical failures. The solution to such problems is independent audits and third-party certification that make the whole process transparent.

7.   Scalability

India has the largest population in the world, and implementing an E-voting system in such a large state is challenging. It requires handling millions of voters in a single day. So, using scalable cloud infrastructure is a solution to handle such a large load of voters. And doing extensive stress testing before deploying E-voting in our country for political elections, RWA elections, or corporate elections is not far away.

Conclusion

E-voting in an online form is a better version to be used for RWA or housing society elections. It is easy and quick and increases voter participation as the participants can vote from a place of their choice. The security and accuracy of this complete system are something that the Pollbag website boasts of. Some people may challenge that there are obstacles that will make E-voting difficult to implement. But the future lies with the online voting system, and it will protect the voting rights of all voters.