Why in news? The Election Commission  announced the development of a prototype of a multi-constituency remote electronic voting machine (RVM) to enable remote voting by migrant voters.

Highlights

• This machines can handle multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth
• The EC invited all recognised political parties eight national and 57 State parties to a demonstration of the prototype
• The idea was to implement voter portability as a pilot project in the Assembly elections in nine States in 2023 and if successful, will fully implemented in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

What was the need for the RVM?

• Voter not opting to register in a new place of residence, thus missing out on exercising the right to vote will be taken care .
• The inability to vote due to internal migration is one of the prominent reasons to be addressed to improve voter turnout and ensure participative elections
• Out-migration due to the need to work, marriage, and education is predominant among the rural population in overall domestic migration will be addressed

Migrant workers

• Definition of migrant voter to be reworked with respect to retaining registration at the original place in the context of the legal construct of “ordinary residence” and “temporary absence”.
• The territorial constituency concept of remote voting and defining remoteness, that is an outside constituency, outside district or outside State will need to be dealt with.

What are the challenges ?

Administrative challenges

• Enumerating remote voters’ self-declaration
• Ensuring secrecy of voting at remote locations
• Provision of polling agents at remote voting booths, and ensuring identification of voters to avoid impersonation.

Technological challenges

• The method of remote voting, the familiarity of the voters with the multi-constituency RVM and counting of votes.

Other areas

• The work include the appointment of polling personnel for remote polling stations and supervision
• The number of polling booths to be set up and their locations
• Implementation of the Model Code of Conduct in remote locations.