Online voting

For the first time in the country, citizens could vote online for the civic elections when Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) goes to polls later this year. The State Election Commission (SEC), in consultation with the state government, has formed a task force to make e-voting or online voting a reality for the municipal corporation polls. State election commissioner KC Kapoor heads the team. E-voting will become a reality in the AMC polls in mid-October, followed by municipal corporation polls in Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar in December. Several top firms have shown interest in working out a complete solution, including IBM, TCS, Silver Touch, Microtech and CMS. The choice of the consultant has narrowed down to Ernst & Young, KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCooper and IL&FS. Two set of options are being considered for establishing the identity of the online voter. First is a biometric solution which is possible at designated places where biometric facility is available on computers. In the second option, the SEC will provide a password to the person who has applied for e-voting. “It will work in the same way as one makes credit card payment,” SEC sources said. E-voting scheme is being implemented under direct instructions from Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The 2010-11 budget, passed in the state Assembly recently, had allocated a token amount of Rs 5 lakh for e-voting, which is being increased. “The effort is to involve upper class people who refrain from voting because they don’t want to stand in a queue, ” Kapoor said, adding that online voting was already popular in the US, UK, Canada, France, Switzerland, Netherlands and Estonia in local polls.