How many buttons does an EVM machine have in total?
How many buttons have symbols and names against them?
Answers
Explanation:
Electronic Voting is the standard means of conducting elections using Electronic Voting Machines, sometimes called "EVMs" in India.[1][2] The use of EVMs and electronic voting was developed and tested by the state-owned Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics in the 1990s. They were introduced in Indian elections between 1998 and 2001, in a phased manner. The electronic voting machines have been used in all general and state assembly elections of India since 2014.[3][2][4]
VVPAT used with Indian electronic voting machines in Indian Elections
Control unit in EVM
Electionic Voting Machine India ballot Unit
Prior to the introduction of electronic voting, India used paper ballots and manual counting. The paper ballots method was widely criticised because of fraudulent voting and booth capturing, where party loyalists captured booths and stuffed them with pre-filled fake ballots. The printed paper ballots were also more expensive, requiring substantial post-voting resources to count hundreds of millions of individual ballots.[2][1] Embedded EVM features such as "electronically limiting the rate of casting votes to five per minute",[1] a security "lock-close" feature, an electronic database of "voting signatures and thumb impressions" to confirm the identity of the voter, conducting elections in phases over several weeks while deploying extensive security personnel at each booth[1] have helped reduce electoral fraud and abuse, eliminate booth capturing and create more competitive and fairer elections.[5][2] Indian EVMs are stand-alone machines built with once write, read-only memory.[6] The EVMs are produced with secure manufacturing practices, and by design, are self-contained, battery-powered and lack any networking capability. They do not have any wireless or wired internet components and interface.[7] The M3 version of the EVMs includes the VVPAT system.[6]
In recent elections, various opposition parties have alleged faulty EVMs after they failed to defeat the incumbent.[8][9] After rulings of Delhi High Court, the Supreme Court of India in 2011 directed the Election Commission to include a paper trail as well to help confirm the reliable operation of EVMs.[9][10] The Election Commission developed EVMs with voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system between 2012 and 2013. The system was tried on a pilot basis in the 2014 Indian general election.[11][12] EVMs and accompanying Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) are now used in every assembly and general election in India and a small percentage of the VVPATs are verified.[13][14][15] On 9 April 2019, Supreme Court of India ordered the Election Commission of India to use VVPAT paper trail system in every assembly constituency but verify only about 2% of the EVMs i.e., 5 polling stations per constituency[15] before certifying the final results. The Election Commission of India has acted under this order and deployed VVPAT verification for 20,625 EVMs in the 2019 Indian general election.[16][17][18]
The Election Commission of India states that their machines, system checks, safeguard procedures, and election protocols are "fully tamper-proof". A team led by Vemuri Hari Prasad of NetIndia Private Limited has shown that if criminals get physical possession of the EVMs before the voting, they can change the hardware inside and thus manipulate the results.[19] The Prasad team recommended a VVPAT paper trail system for verification.[19] The Election Commission states that along with VVPAT method, immediately prior to the election day, a sample number of votes for each political party nominee is entered into each machine, in the presence of polling agents. At the end of this sample trial run, the votes counted and matched with the entered sample votes, to ensure that the machine's hardware has not been tampered with, it is operating reliably and that there were no hidden votes pre-recorded in each machine.[20] Machines that yield a faulty result have been replaced to ensure a reliable electoral process.[21][22]