INDIA: After decades of voting by stamping ballot cards, millions of Indians are now merely pressing a button on electronic voting machines. The system has been employed successfully for the first time across the country in the month-long parliamentary elections that end later this month
India has an electorate of over 668 million, covering 543 parliamentary constituencies, voting for which ends on May 10th. Results will be known within hours of vote-counting, which begins three days later. Previously, it took several days physically to count the ballots.
The voting machines are also good for the environment, as they save nearly 9000 tons of ballot papers used in previous elections that were made by cutting down around 20 million trees.
"You won't believe the kind of response they [the voting machines] have generated," said Mr N.N. Simha of Bharat Electronics Ltd in Bangalore, one of two state-owned companies in southern India tasked with making over one million voting machines that have been deployed across the country.
"Some of them were thrilled to punch the machines. I have never seen so many happy villagers," he declared.
In the mammoth electoral exercise in the world's largest democracy, voting machines have been transported to polling centres in deserts, remote hills and Himalayan valleys where election officials travel on horse, elephant, camel or yak.
"I am excited that I am not lagging behind but also operating a modern machine," Mr Babul Deka, an illiterate farmer in the northeastern state of Assam, said after casting his ballot. "It's so thrilling and easy to operate," he added.
Other than efficiency, the independent Election Commission said the small, portable machines, used in smaller numbers over the past decade on an experimental basis, are also being deployed to tackle one of the biggest problems in Indian elections - vote fraud.
In the past, local political thugs would indulge in "booth capturing ", a violent manoeuvre in which armed attackers would seize control of the voting station.
Watched by helpless polling officials, the thugs would then stamp ballots in favour of their chosen candidate and stuff them in ballot boxes.
Sometimes, when candidates knew they had done badly in a certain constituency, they simply hired gangsters to steal the ballot boxes as they were being transported to counting centres.
The new machines are a certain way to fight such malpractices.
At the first sign of trouble, polling officials can shut down the machines at the press of a button, rendering them useless if stolen. Another voting machine would then be used to continue voting.
The devices are also said to be immune from hacking, a concern that security experts have raised with the larger machines used in the United States - and that has also been raised in Ireland. The Indian devices use microprocessors with software burned in, to prevent it being altered or replaced. Any tampering would be obvious.
Votes are counted by physically transporting the machines to centralised and well guarded counting centres. There, with representatives from each candidate watching, results are read off the machines one by one and tabulated.
The voting machines consist of a control unit operated by polling officials and a balloting unit where people vote, joined to it by a long cable.
The control unit is manned by the polling official while the balloting unit is placed inside a voting compartment that ensures privacy. By necessitating activation on both ends, officials say, a voter cannot vote twice. Electronic voting also precludes invalid ballots.
Instead of issuing a ballot paper, the polling officer presses the ballot button each time for a new voter. This enables the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the balloting unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice.
Voting machines cost around €200 each and can register a maximum of 3840 votes compared with just 600 per ballot box in the past. Voters in India's constituencies vary between 1.5 million and around 10,000 each.
Voting machines can also store data that is easily retrievable for a decade.
"It is safe, secure, tamper-proof and error-free," deputy election commissioner Mr Ajay Narain Jha said.