Questions raised over logic of using ballot papers for local body elections

The Karnataka government’s decision on reintroducing ballot papers in the upcoming local body elections has drawn criticism from current and former government officers who have served in the Chief Electoral Officer’s Office and the State Election Commission.

Speaking to The Hindu, a few senior officers questioned the logic of using ballot papers. One of them said: “Local elections are often the most hotly contested, and on the political front it opens the door for manipulation, and paper ballots make malpractice easier.”

Costs of reverting

Besides taking a long process of counting votes, they said the use of ballot papers would increase the financial and environmental costs multiple times.

Some retired IAS officers, who served as the CEO and State Election Commissioner, argued that reverting to ballot papers is like “taking democracy back 30 years.”

Operationally “it’s a nightmare as there are crores of ballots to print, store, guard, and count. Mistakes are inevitable,” said one of them.

A senior current officer said: “If the real issue is erosion of trust, the solution is not to abandon EVMs but to enhance trust-building mechanisms by greater use of voter verifiable audit trail (VVPAT), public demonstrations of machines, involving political parties in randomisation, strong-room checks, and using technology to livestream counting and secure data.”

Reintroducing old issues

Further, he said that ballot papers would not solve mistrust, but “simply replace one set of suspicions with another, and reintroduce old problems we worked very hard to eliminate.”

Former Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla, in his book Every Vote Counts: The Story of India’s Elections, defends the use of EVMs and says: “When some political parties or candidates have lost elections, they have been quick to blame the EVMs. Yet, when they win at the hustings where the same machines were being used, they celebrate their victories, with gusto.”

Further, Mr Chawla says that “the new generation of EVMs are more foolproof.” He advises aggrieved parties to “look inwards rather than blame a machine.

Mr. Chawla says: “The EVMs would save an estimated two lakh trees from being cut, to produce over 10,000 tonnes of paper required for the general elections. With Assembly elections added, millions of trees would be saved over time.”

Use of EVMs difficult in GP polls

A retired State Election Commissioner said it would be difficult to use EVMs in Gram Panchayat (GP) polls, since there are multi-member wards/constituencies in GPs. For instance, some GP wards in Kalaburagi district were represented not by one member but five to six. The State had been using ballot papers in GP polls. However, EVMs will be used in conducting polls to ZP/TP and city corporations, which are conducted on party lines, the retired official said.