ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES

THE ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE - AN ELECTRONIC MARVEL

Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) retains all the characteristics of voting by ballot papers, while making polling a lot more expedient. Being fast and absolutely reliable, the EVM saves considerable time, money and manpower. And, of course, helps maintain total voting secrecy without the use of ballot papers. The EVM is 100 per cent tamper proof. And, at the end of the polling, just press a button and there you have the results. Electronic Voting Machines ("EVM") are being used in Indian General and State Elections to implement electronic voting in part from 1999 elections and in total since 2002 elections. The EVMs reduce the time in both casting a vote and declaring the results compared to the old paper ballot system.

HISTORY
The EVMs were devised and designed by Election Commission of India in collaboration with two Public Sector undertakings viz., Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad. The EVMs are now manufactured by the above two undertakings. EVMs were first used in 1982 in the by-election to Parur Assembly Constituency of Kerala for a limited number of polling stations (50 polling stations)

TECHNOLOGY

Indian voting machines use a two-piece system with a balloting unit presenting the voter with a button (momentary switch) for each choice connected by a cable to an electronic ballot box. An EVM consists of two units:

Control Unit Balloting Unit

The two units are joined by a five-meter cable. The Control Unit is with the Presiding Officer or a Polling Officer and the Balloting Unit is placed inside the voting compartment. Instead of issuing a ballot paper, the Polling Officer in-charge of the Control Unit will press the Ballot Button. This will enable the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the Balloting Unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice. The controller used in EVMs has its operating program etched permanently in silicon at the time of manufacturing by the manufacturer. No one (including the manufacturer) can change the program once the controller is manufactured.

How To Cast Vote Through Electronic Voting Machines

A. Voter will be called by name as usual to put his signature on Voting Register. B. Electoral Officer will put special ink on his finger as usual. C. Electoral Officer will hand over a slip containing voters serial number as shown in the Voter Register. D. Voter will hand over the slip to Presiding Officer . He will satisfy himself about the genuineness of the particulars of the voter. E. After all these formalities, voter will be asked to reach at Electronic Voting Machine kept in a corner covered from sides to maintain secrecy of the vote. F. Voting Machine will contain candidates name and symbol against each name. There will be a red light and a blue button. Voter shall have to press the blue button against the candidate of the choice. Red light will appear on the pressing of blue button and sound like whistle will also be heard which will indicate that the ballot has been casted. If red light does not appear voter can press the blue button again.

FEATURES OF EVMs

 EVMs are powered by an ordinary 6 volt alkaline battery manufactured by Bharat Electronics Ltd., Bangalore and Electronic Corporation of India Ltd., Hyderabad. This design enables the use of EVMs throughout the country without interruptions because several parts of India do not have power supply and/or erratic power supply. Currently, an EVM can record a maximum of 3840 votes, which is sufficient for a polling station as they typically have no more than 1400 voters assigned. Currently, an EVM can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates. There is provision for 16 candidates in a Balloting Unit. If the total number of candidates exceeds 16, a second Balloting Unit can be linked parallel to the first Balloting Unit and so on till a maximum of 4 units and 64 candidates. The conventional ballot paper/box method of polling is used if the number of candidates exceeds 64. It is not possible to vote more than once by pressing the button again and again. As soon as a particular button on the Balloting Unit is pressed, the vote is recorded for that particular candidate and the machine gets locked. Even if one presses that button further or any other button, no further vote will be recorded. This way the EVMs ensure the principle of "one person, one vote". The EVMs cannot be pre-programmed to favour a party or a candidate because the order in which the name of a candidate/party appears on the balloting unit depends on the order of filing of nominations and validity of the candidature, this sequence cannot be predicted in advance. Further, the selection of EVMs for polling stations is randomized by computer selection preventing the advance knowledge of assignment of specific EVMs to polling stat

BENEFITS OF USING EVMs

The cost per EVM (One Control Unit, one Balloting Unit and one battery) was Rs.5,500/- at the time the machines were purchased in 1989-90. Even though the initial investment was somewhat heavy, it was more than neutralised by the savings in the matter of production and printing of ballot papers in lakhs, their transportation, storage etc., and the substantial reduction in the counting staff and the remuneration paid to them. It will be easier to transport the EVMs compared to ballot boxes as EVMs are lighter, portable and come with polypropylene carrying cases. The vote-counting is very fast and the result can be declared within 2 to 3 hours as compared to 3040 hours, on an average, under the ballot-paper system. In countries like India, where illiteracy is still a factor, illiterate people find EVMs easier than ballot paper system, where one has to put the voting stamp on the symbol of the candidate of his/her choice, fold it first vertically and then horizontally, and put it into the ballot box. In EVMs, the voter has to simply press the blue button against the candidate and symbol of his choice and the vote is recorded. Bogus voting can be greatly reduced by the use of EVMs. In case of ballot paper system, a bogus voter can stuff thousands of bogus ballot papers inside the ballot box. But, an EVM is programmed to record only five votes in a minute. This will frustrate the bogus voters. Further, the maximum number of votes that can be cast in a single EVM is 3840. If an EVM goes out-of-order then, the Election Officer, in-charge of the polling booth, can replace the defunct EVM with a spare EVM. The votes recorded until the stage when the EVM went out of order remain safe in the memory of the Control Unit and it is not necessary to start the poll from the beginning. The Control Unit can store the result in its memory for 10 years and even more. The battery is required only to activate the EVMs at the time of polling and counting. As soon as the polling is over, the battery can be switched off and this will be required to be switched on only at the time of counting. The battery can be removed as soon as the result is taken and can be kept separately. Therefore, there is no question of battery leaking or otherwise damaging EVMs. Even when the battery is removed the memory in the microchip remains intact. If the Court orders a recount, the Control Unit can be reactivated by fixing the battery and it will display the result stored in the memory. Invalid votes can be avoided by use of EVMs. When ballot system was used in India, the number of invalid votes was more than the winning margin between the candidates in every general elections. With EVMs, there are no invalid votes. Since EVMs work on a 6-volt battery, there is absolutely no risk of any voter getting an electric shock.

USAGE OF AN EVM

If the number of candidates is less than the maximum capacity of the EVM, the extra panels are masked before use. Before the commencement of the polling process, the Presiding Officer demonstrates to the polling agents present that there are no hidden votes already recorded in the machine by pressing the 'Result' button. Then he or she conducts a mock poll by asking the polling agents to record their votes and presses the result button to satisfy them that the result shown is strictly according to the choice recorded by them. Finally the clear button is pressed to clear the result of the mock poll and the unit is sealed before sending it to the respective polling booths. (Not sure about this part: is this testing/sealing done at a Central/State level or at a Polling Booth level?) Each Control Unit has a unique ID Number, which is painted on each unit with a permanent marker. This ID Number will be allowed to be noted by the Polling Agents and will also be recorded in a Register maintained for the purpose by the Returning Officer. The address tag attached to the Control Unit also will indicate this ID Number. This is to avoid replacement of a genuine EVM by another one. As soon as the voter presses the 'blue button' against the candidate and symbol of his choice, a tiny lamp on the left side of the symbol glows red and simultaneously a long beep sound is heard. Thus, there is both audio and visual indications for the voter to be assured that his vote has been recorded. As soon as the last voter has voted, the Polling Officer in-charge of the Control Unit will press the 'Close' Button. Thereafter, the EVM will not accept any votes. Further, after the close of poll, the Balloting Unit is disconnected from the Control Unit and kept separately. Votes can be recorded only through the Balloting Unit. Again the Presiding officer, at the close of the poll, will hand over to each polling agent present an account of votes recorded. At the time of counting of votes, the total will be tallied with this account and if there is any discrepancy, this will be pointed out by the Counting Agents. During the counting of votes, the results are displayed by pressing the 'Result' button. There are two safeguards to prevent the 'Result' button from being pressed before the counting of votes officially begins. (a) This button cannot be pressed till the 'Close' button is pressed by the Polling Officer in-charge at the end of the voting process in the polling booth. (b) This button is hidden and sealed; this can be broken only at the counting center in the presence of designated officials.

LIMITATIONS OF ELECTRONIC VOTING

A candidate can know how many people from a polling station voted for him. For example, in Indian general elections, 2004; the day after the election results were declared, The Times of India, Mumbai carried statistics about which areas in Mumbai voted for which candidate. People from Kandivali gave more votes to Govinda, while people from Borivali polled more votes for his opponent Ram Naik. This is a significant issue particularly if lop-sided votes for/against a candidate are cast in individual polling stations. The Election Commission of India has stated that the manufacturers of the EVMs have developed a 'Totaliser' unit which can connect several Balloting Units and would display only the overall results from an Assembly or a Lok Sabha constituency instead of votes from individual polling stations. The control units do not electronically transmit their results back the Election Commission, even though a simple and unconditionally secure protocol for doing this exists. The Indian EVMs are purposely designed as stand-alone units to prevent any intrusion during electronic transmission of results. Instead, the EVMs are collected in counting booths and tallied on the assigned counting day(s) in the presence of polling agents of the candidates.

Hacking INDIAs Voting Machines

In April 2010 a security analysis was published describing two attacks on the control unit that have the potential to change the outcome of an election as well as several other potential vulnerabilities. The attacks were based on tampering with the control unit itself in order to either manipulate the readback of results by compromising the display device; or a clipon chip to manipulate the memory of the machine. In order to mitigate the threat they suggest moving to a "verified voting" system that produces a paper receipt visible to the voter that would allow a manual recount if necessary.

VHDL Source Code To Implement ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES

--{{ Section below this comment is automatically maintained -- and may be overwritten

--{entity {EVM} architecture {evm}} library IEEE; use IEEE.STD_LOGIC_1164.all; entity EVM is

--Entity Declaration

port ( BJP: in bit; INC: in bit; SAD: in bit; SP : in bit; LBP: in bit; IC : in bit; CPU_SWITCH: in bit; TOTALVOTES: out INTEGER range 0 to 999 ); end EVM; --}} End of automatically maintained section architecture evm of EVM is begin

--Architecture Body -- <<enter your statements here>>

process(CPU_SWITCH,BJP,INC,SAD,SP,LBP,IC) variable votes_of_BJP: integer range 0 to 999; variable votes_of_INC: integer range 0 to 999; variable votes_of_SAD: integer range 0 to 999; variable votes_of_SP: integer range 0 to 999; variable votes_of_LBP: integer range 0 to 999; variable votes_of_IC: integer range 0 to 999; begin if(CPU_SWITCH='1') then if(BJP='1') then votes_of_BJP:=votes_of_BJP+1; else null; end if;

if(INC='1') then votes_of_INC:=votes_of_INC+1; else null; end if;

if(SAD='1') then votes_of_SAD:=votes_of_SAD+1; else null; end if; if(SP='1') then votes_of_SP:=votes_of_SP+1; else null; end if; if(LBP='1') then votes_of_LBP:=votes_of_LBP+1; else null; end if; if(IC='1') then votes_of_IC:=votes_of_IC+1; else null; end if; else null; end if; TOTALVOTES<= votes_of_BJP + votes_of_INC + votes_of_SAD + votes_of_SP + votes_of_LBP + votes_of_IC; end process; end evm;

Simulation Waveform Showing working of ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE

APPENDIX
List Of Symbols:

1.EVM:Electronic Voting Machine 2.BU:Ballot Unit Of Electronic Voting Machine 3.CU:Control Unit Of Electronic Voting Machine 4.BJP:Bharatiya Janata Party 5.INC:Indian National Congress 6.SAD:Shiromani Akali Dal 7.SP:Samajvadi Party 8.LBP:Lok Bhalai Party 9.IC:Independent Candidates

APPLICATIONS
Fast track voting which could be used in small scale elections, like resident welfare association, panchayat level election and other society level elections.

 It could also be used to conduct opinion polls during annual share holders meeting. It could also be used to conduct general assembly elections where number of candidates are less than or equal to eight in the current situation.

FUTURE SCOPE
It could be interfaced with printer to get the hard copy of the result almost instantly from the machine itself. It could also be interfaced with the personal computer and result could be stored in the central server and its backup could be taken on the other backend servers. Again, once the result is on the server it could be relayed on the network to various offices of the election conducting authority. Thus our project could make the result available any corner of the world in a matter of seconds

REFRENCES AND BIBLOGRAPHY

J.BHASKER Third Edition, VHDL PRIMER

 ARMSTRONG,J.R.,Chip-Level Modelling with VHDL,Englewood Cliffs,NJ:Prentice Hall,1988 General information about electronic voting machine
www.eci.gov.in www.eci.gov.in/faq/evm.asp www.wikipedia.org/electronic voting www.rajasthan.net/election/guide/evm.htm www.indian-elections.com/electoralsystem/electricvotingmachine.html

Tutorial on Electronic Voting Machines:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_8152/is_20081029/ai_n50780405/ http://telecomblogs.in/?p=1022 http://www.8051projects.net/microcontroller_electronics_voting_machine_project