Telangana's dry run of India's first mobile e-voting a success, voters hail the move

The e-voting process which was launched by the Election Commission in Khammam corporation was successfully completed on Wednesday, said officials.

Hyderabad:The E-voting process which was launched by the Election Commission in Khammam corporation was successfully completed on Wednesday. It is an experimental pilot project (E-Voting pilot project) to enable voters to cast their vote from their homes and also meant to help women and elderly voters to skip long queues before polling booths.

Adarsh Surabhi, Municipal commissioner of Khammam said, "We are conducting a mock e-voting pilot project. This experimental project is introduced to help voters to cast their votes from their homes,"

Talking to ETV Bharat Surabhi said a total of 3,820 people registered in the Khammama city for e-voting. The sample polling started at 7 am on Wednesday and continued till 5 pm. E-voting had been going on enthusiastically since morning. A total of 2,128 people exercised their dummy voting right through the app. But around 1702 people abstained from e-voting.

Adarsh Surabhi further claimed that around 1000 people used the e-vote app in the first four hours. A total of 1,680 votes were cast by 1 pm, 1,940 votes by 3 pm, and 2,128 votes by 5 pm. A steep rise was seen in the number of people availing the app to vote with 55.6 per cent of people casting their vote. The voting process was completed in just two to three minutes.

Though many voters showed interest to vote but were unable to exercise their franchise due to technical glitches in their mobile phones since their attempt to open the app turned futile. Even re-loading of the app did not help much. Whereas, many others refrained from using e-voting facility.

The Municipal Commissioner of Khammam reacting to the technical glitches faced by the users said, "We have provided all the details to the election commission and their concerned IT department. They assured to look into the technical woes. IT team is also working over specified issues raised by the voters to make e-voting a better experience. "

Nonetheless, all the participants and even district officials expressed happiness over sample e-voting process. Sharing her experience, a 30-year-old woman who was able to cast her vote through her mobile said, "The e-voting process is very good and quite easy too. I am very happy to use my mobile for casting my vote. It will be helpful for woman as well as elderly ones to cast their vote from their homes. Kudos to Election Commission for this initiative."

Another participant of this e-voting app said, "Anybody can use this facility quite easily. In fact, it takes just five minutes to complete the process. Moreover, it can curb malpractices in physical voting. It can capture our Iris and the voter is identified. Great beginning for the novel idea initiated by Election Commission."

Summing up the process, Municipal Commissioner said that specified goal of the election commission has been achieved. The initiative didn't receive overwhelming response due lack of awareness among public. Henceforth, the Election Commission will undertake several awareness programs and ensure smooth registration process for e-vote with support of IT teams, it will the app voter-friendly, he added.