India’s Voting Machines Are Raising Too Many Questions
The world’s biggest democracy needs assurance that the election results on June 4 will present a true record of almost 1 billion voters’ intentions.
Electronic voting machines are now under judicial scrutiny.
Photographer: Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images
Now that the quid pro quo in India’s opaque electoral funding has been exposed, electronic voting machines are the next port of call for judicial scrutiny. And rightly so.
The national elections have been paperless since 2004. Yet, the voting devices remain deeply controversial. On April 16, Supreme Court judges will hear petitions demanding 100% matching of ballots recorded electronically with paper slips. Currently, these physical records are briefly shown to electors behind a glass screen; only a small sample gets counted.