EVM Demo Machines

Electronic voting machines (EVMs) are magic machines that convert candidates into representatives. This magic depends on the number of votes counted on the EVM as having been cast in favour of a candidate. Candidates and people accepting the voting count as a representation of the people’s mandate depends on their trust in these machines.

The EVM demo that took place at Bandra station was meant to demonstrate that the tally of votes cast in favour of the candidates by each polling agent is reflected correctly on counting.

This voting test, in other words, declares a machine to be capable of capturing votes correctly if it is impossible to distinguish between results declared after a manual counting of votes recorded on paper and after a counting by the machine.

At Bandra station, while the election commission officials were trying to gather the crowd in the evening, some of the people reluctantly participated in the demonstration as it was 5:30 pm and everyone was running to catch their respective trains.

While talking to officials during the demonstration of the machines, they said that the purpose of doing this is for people to understand how to register a vote correctly and this also applies to first-time voters.

Written by Journalism students Malhar Desai & Samara Fernandes