eVoting is the flagship service of Right2Vote platform. Right2Vote is a government of India approved eVoting platform. Here we explain the meaning of eVoting and various different types of eVoting prevalent in the world.
Online voting is known by various names. eVoting or Electronic Voting, mVoting or Mobile Voting, rVoting or Remote Voting, iVoting or Internet Voting. By whatever name called, generally speaking, online voting means:
Voting electronically with the help of internet. Voting medium can be mobile, computer, laptop or any other internet enabled device. Generally online voting is also remote voting as voter is able to vote from anywhere and he need not go to a particular booth to vote.
However, voting has evolved over a long period of time. And hence people get confused with terms like eVoting. The origin of word eVoting is coming from Electronic Voting but does it mean internet-based voting? One can experience different kind of voting processes across the world. Most voting processes are similar but with some subtle and not so subtle differences. Here we explain evolution of eVoting or online voting and also explain why people should go for Genearation 4+ online voting technology offered by Right2Vote and not a compromised lower generation service.
Oldest form of voting is physical voting or booth-based voting. In such voting the voter has to be physically present at a particular place to vote. In physical voting also there can be different versions. In generation one, various form of physical voting includes:
Physical voting with paper based secret ballot is still the most prevalent voting system across the world.
Generation 1 voting method i.e., paper based voting, have many major drawbacks which include:
To solve these problems, the second-generation voting system replaced the paper voting with electronic voting machines or the EVMs. In India, EVMs were introduced 40 years back in 1982. These EVM machines are not linked to internet and hence very old technology. The EVMs are still useful as it solves the problems of manual counting - pace and accuracy issue, ballot rejections due to marking errors by voters etc.
With advent of internet internet-based voting limited remote voting experiments started. During generation 1 of paper voting, specific voters like members of the armed forces were given the right to vote via postal ballots. Similarly, government of India is providing very limited number of voters of specific class to vote by a technology similar to emails. Here the election commissions email the ballot to the voter, and then the voter downloads it, votes, and emails back the document with his signature. This method is not real time and there are lot of limitations including requirement of physical counting, lengthy process, limited security and authentication etc.
Generation 2 voting technology - EVMs, has many drawbacks including:
Internet based voting solved most of these problems. Internet based voting can be done on most of the internet enables devices with screens. The ballot page can be configured on the software and shown on screen which substantially solves the limitation of EVM machines which provides very limited options. It does not require the voting agency to buy single purpose and costly EVM machines.
However, generation 3 iVoting is generally limited to specific booths where the voting agency provided stationary digital equipment in form of screens or computers on which voter has to vote. The hardware is generally provided by the voting agency which has security software and hardware bases security to ensure that voters cannot vote via any unauthorised device.
Generation 3 iVoting method still has many limitations including:
To solve these problems, mobile voting or voting with the help of mobile devices came into being. Now voter can vote from any device from anywhere. The voter need not visit the booth to vote, and the voting agency need not provide costly equipment to the voters to be able to vote. Voter can vote directly from their mobile phones / tabs / laptops, or any other internet enabled device. mVoting substantially increases voting process efficiency due to following reasons:
Right2Vote's online voting technology is superior even to generation 4 - Mobile Voting. It has all the above advantages of mobile voting and even more:
To better appreciate Right2Vote's advanced voting technology email Right2Vote at contact@right2vote.in or call at +91 9920591306 and ask for a demo.