NEW DELHI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Around 4 million electronic voting machines (EVMs) are to be used for polling of votes in India during the ongoing general elections for 17th Lok Sabha, the lower house of the country's parliament.
Elections are being held in seven phases, with the first phase concluded on April 11. Thursday witnessed the second phase of polling, while the last phase is to be held on May 19. Results are slated to be announced on May 23.
The EVMs have been regularly used for conducting various kinds of elections in India over two decades. The idea of using EVMs was first mooted by the political class of the country as early as in 1977, and it took 20 years before a general consensus was reached out on their usage.
For the first time EVMs were used between 1999 and 2004 for conducting Assembly (state-level) polls in different states. For the parliamentary polls, they were first used in 2004, and also in the subsequent general elections in 2009 and 2014. Prior to that votes were cast on ballot papers.
An EVM is an electronic device used for recording votes, and consists of two units - a Control Unit (CU) and a Balloting Unit (BU) which are joined together by a cable. The voters cast their vote in the BU and all the votes cast at a polling booth get recorded in the CU.
Advantages often cited for using the EVMs are - they do away with printing millions of ballot papers, eliminate the possibility of "invalid votes," and counting of votes becomes much easier by simply pushing a button.
