As an engineer, Mr. Rangarajan supervised the design and production of the electronic voting machine (EVM) during his tenure at Bharat Electronics Limited,

An EVM consists of two units, a control unit, and the balloting unit. The two units are joined by a five-meter cable. Balloting unit facilitates voting by a voter via labeled buttons while the control unit controls the ballot units, stores voting counts and displays the results on 7 segment LED displays. 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.

An EVM can record a maximum of 3840 votes and can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates. There is provision for 16 candidates in a single balloting unit and up to a maximum of 4 units can be connected in parallel. 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 control unit is with the presiding officer or a polling officer and the balloting Unit is placed inside the voting compartment. The balloting unit presents the voter with blue buttons (momentary switch) horizontally labeled with corresponding party symbol and candidate names. The Control Unit, on the other hand, provides the officer-in-charge with a "Ballot" marked button to proceed to the next voter, instead of issuing a ballot paper to them. This activates the ballot unit for a single vote from the next voter in the queue. The voter has to cast his vote by once pressing the blue button on the balloting unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice.

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 the 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. 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. This button is hidden and sealed; this can be broken only at the counting center in the presence of a designated officer.

it has since been expected to save costs of production and printing of chores of ballot papers, their transportation and storage, substantial reduction in the counting staff and the remuneration paid to them. For each national election, it is estimated that about 10,000 tonnes of the ballot paper are saved. EVMs are easier to transport compared to ballot boxes as they are lighter, more portable, and come with polypropylene carrying cases. Vote counting is also faster. In places where illiteracy is a factor, illiterate people find EVMs easier than the ballot paper system. Bogus voting is greatly reduced as the vote is recorded only once. The unit can store the result in its memory before it is erased manually. The battery is required only to activate the EVMs at the time of polling and counting and as soon as the polling is over, the battery can be switched off. The shelf life of EVMs is estimated at 15 years.

In order to mitigate these threats in the aspects of security, the researchers suggest moving to a voting system that provides greater transparency, such as paper ballots, precinct count optical scan, or a voter verified paper audit trail, since, in any of these systems, skeptical voters could, in principle, observe the physical counting process to gain confidence that the outcome is fair. Given that EVMs are stored under strict security which can be monitored by candidates or their agents all the time, it’s impossible to gain physical access to the machines. Plus, to impact the results of an election, hundreds to thousands of machines will be needed to tamper with, which is almost impossible given the hi-tech and time-consuming nature of the tampering process.

A candidate can know how many people from a polling station voted for him. This is a significant issue particularly if lop-sided votes for/against a candidate are cast in individual polling stations and the winning candidate might show favoritism or hold a grudge on specific areas.
The control units do not electronically transmit their results back to the Election Commission, even though a simple and unconditionally secure protocol for doing this exists. This type of EVMs is 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.



www.scitechinfo.com.ng

You have no right to complain about corruption at the Federal level when Tinubu is bleeding your entire region dry
Before you take your ewedu mixer that doubles as your broom to the center of town to do your moral environmental cleansing, why not sweep the squalid filth that Tinubu has dumped in your house.

1. buhari exposed the level of Illiteracy in our midst. You have to be a real dunce to still support Buhari
2. buhari exposed the fact that we have very sadistic and evil people among us with the way these set of people openly endorse and defend Buhari's atrocities
3. buhari exposed the hacks and quacks parading as men and women of integrity. From Soyinka to Falana; Oby to Sagay to Bakare and Adeboye, the list is endless.
The above last expose has been the best thing a Buhari Presidency has achieved as this has permanently sieved the chaff from the wheat. The likes of Oby, Keyamo, Falana, Bakare, Soyinka, Donald Duke and Pat Utomi will never ever be taken serious ever again and whatever influence they used to wield has been watered down and diluted with their own excrement.