Delhi: The Election Commission of India has developed a prototype of Remote Electronic Voting Machin (RVM) for domestic migrant voters, which can handle remote voting in up to 72 constituencies from a single booth. The commission Thursday floated the concept note on remote voting and sought views from stakeholders on implementation.
It had also sought the views of the political parties on the legal, administrative, and technical challenges in implementing it. The EC has scheduled a demonstration of the RVM for all 8 recognised national parties and 57 parties on Jan. 16, 2023, and the invitation for the same had been extended to the said lot.
EC along with a Public Sector Undertaking is now ready to pilot a Multi Constituency RVM for facilitating the participation of domestic migrants from their remote locations itself i.e., the places of their current residence for purposes of education/employment, etc., for voting for their home constituencies.
This modified form of EVM can handle up to 72 multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth. The initiative, if implemented, can lead to a social transformation for the migrants and connect with their roots as many times they are reluctant to get themselves enrolled at their place of work for various reasons, the Commission said.
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According to the EC, frequently changing residences, not enough social and emotional connect with the issues of area of migration, unwillingness to get their name deleted in the electoral roll of their home/native constituencies as they have permanent residence/property are among the major reasons why migrant workers do not get enrolled at their work location.
"After focus on youth and urban apathy, remote voting will be a transformational initiative for strengthening participation in electoral democracy", Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar claimed. As per the notification, the voter turnout in General Elections 2019 was 67.4 %. The Commission said it was concerned about the issue of over 30 Crore electors not exercising their franchise and also differential voter turnout in various States/UT.
The inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migrant) is one of the prominent reasons to be addressed to improve voter turnout and ensure participative elections. Although there is no central database available for migration within the country, the analysis of available data in public domain points to work, marriage and education-related migration as important components of domestic migration, the EC reasoned.
