Permanent Representatives to the UN from 12 Countries Visit Election Commission of India

[Hindustani78]

Election Commission
23-August, 2018 19:21 IST
Permanent Representatives to the UN from 12 Countries Visit Election Commission of India

A delegation of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations from twelve countries, namely Equatorial Guinea, Comoros, Niger, St. Kitts & Nevis, Grenada, Malta, Marshal Islands, Dominica, St. Lucia, Eswatini, Zambia and Kiribati visited the Election Commission of India today. The delegation is visiting India from 22-28 August 2018 under the sponsorship of the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. The delegation met Election Commissioner Shri Ashok Lavasa and exchanged views on the best practices of the Indian Electoral system.

Shri Ashok Lavasa in his address to the Permanent Representatives stated that globalisation and deepening of roots of democracy worldwide have been the most significant developments in recent years. He said that by constructive collaboration many a challenges have been overcome. Referring to the strengths of participative method of decision making in democracy and the fact that even the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by UN member countries, recognising capacity building and strengthening of institutions as one of the significant goals, the Election Commission of India has been contributing its bit in ensuring efficient, peaceful election management system in India.

Election Commissioner Shri Lavasa mentioned that challenges facing ECI include (i) striving to ensure inclusive electoral roll given the magnitude of population; (ii) use of technology; (iii) abuse of social media and (iv)misuse of money power. He stated that ECI has always believed in consultative process with all stakeholders and has been successful in holding free, fair and credible elections year after year. On ECI’s active international outreach programme, he mentioned that ECI’s contacts with Election Management Bodies abroad have been expanding and ECI has been sharing best practices, experience and innovations with other countries for mutual benefit.

Shri Umesh Sinha, Sr. Deputy Election Commissioner, ECI welcomed the distinguished guests at the ECI and briefed the delegates about the election process in India and the international cooperation programme of the ECI. He gave a presentation about the structure, role and work of ECI in managing the largest election exercise in the world. A short film on Parliamentary Election 2014 was also screened for the delegation followed by a Question and Answer session addressing various queries from the delegates. A live and hands-on demonstration of the working of Electronic Voting Machines and the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail was also arranged for the delegation.

The briefing session was also attended by Mr. Dhirendra Ojha, Director General, ECI; and Ms. Padma Angmo, Director, ECI.

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[Hindustani78]

Election Commission
14-September, 2018 19:22 IST
ECI-EVMs are totally distinct from ones used in elections held by other organisation/institution

Certain complaints of alleged tampering of EVMs during the recently held elections held by different organizations/institutions elsewhere also generated wrong perception about EVMs of Election Commission of India. It was noted that confusion exists in the minds of many about the jurisdiction of ECI. We would like to clarify once again on this occasion that ECI is not responsible for the conduct of local body elections ) that are conducted by the Election Commissions of other nations and elections held by various organisations/institutions in the other country and consequently about various protocols and procedures adopted by them.

The Commission is confident and has firm conviction about the integrity, non-tamperability and credibility of ECI-EVMs. The basis of confidence of the Commission flows from a wide range of technical and administrative protocols and procedural safeguards that protects our EVMs and VVPATs against any sort of tampering during manufacture, transportation, storage, polling and counting process.

Till 2017, M/s Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore and M/s Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad were allowed by the Commission to supply EVMs to State Election Commissions and other organisations (The permission letter issued in August, 2006 is enclosed). However, since May 2017, BEL and ECIL were directed to seek Commission’s prior approval and supply only EVMs that are different from ECI-EVMs to SECs or to other foreign countries, that too only after the current ordered quantities to ECI are fully supplied.

Old EVMs are sent to BEL/ECIL for destruction and destroyed as per strict protocol prescribed by the Commission.

Election Commission of India uses only single post EVMs (i.e. vote can be cast only for one post). In the elections at DUSU, it is told that multi-post EVMs (i.e. vote can be cast for more than one post for instance President/Vice-President/General Secretary), which are technically completely different from ECI’s single post EVMs, have been used.

The Commission would like to state that the important technical and administrative safeguards available in ECI-EVMs might not be available in EVMs being used by other organisations/institutions.

Click here to see Delhi univercity procurement permission 2006

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