ECI’s decisive move: Multi Constituency Remote Electronic Voting Machines soon

Good news for all the domestic migrants and migrant voters. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is all set to launch a pilot of Multi Constituency Remote Electronic Voting Machine to facilitate participation of domestic migrants from their remote locations. This would be done using the time-tested model of M3 EVMs for ensuring voting rights of the people at remote polling centres which include polling stations outside their home constituency for domestic migrants. Thanks to this decisive move by the ECI, migrant voters will be able to exercise their franchise without the need to travel back to his/her home district.
The Commission is doing the pilot with a Public Sector Undertaking.

“This modified form of EVM can handle up to 72 multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth. The initiative, if implemented, will bring in revolutionary changes as far as ensuring a person’s voting rights is concerned. This will too pave way for social transformation”, the Commission said in an official statement.

The ECI has invited all the recognised 8 national and 57 state political parties on January 16 to demonstrate the functioning of the multi-constituency prototype remote EVM. The Technical Expert Committee members will also be present.

Besides, the Commission has also solicited written views of recognised political parties by January 1, 2023 on various related issues including changes required in legislation, changes in administrative procedures and voting method/RVM/technology, if any other, for the domestic migrants.

Based on the feedback received from various stakeholders and demonstration of the prototype, the Commission will appropriately carry forward the process of implementing remote voting method.

The ECI decided to come up with the remote EVMs after it found that over 30 crore electors were not exercising their franchise. The ECI findings established that there are multifarious reasons for a voter not opting to register in a new place of residence, thus missing out on exercising the right to vote.

“Inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migrants) 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. Approximately 85% of the internal migration is within the States,” ECI said in an official release.

Soon after assuming office as Chief Election Commissioner, Rajiv Kumar got a first-hand account during his trek to Dumak village in Chamoli district. He then focused his attention on enabling the migrant voters to exercise their franchise from their current place of residence.