Science & Technology Minister Explains the Working of EVMs [Interview]

Since assuming power, Prime Minister Imran Khan was determined to bring efficiency, reliability, and credibility to the electoral process through the use of modern technology, Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Shibli Faraz, has said.

In an exclusive interview with ProPakistan regarding the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the general elections, the Minister said that the use of EVMs aims to ensure the conduct of transparent elections and prevent losing candidates from politicizing the elections.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) conducts elections in the country. The Science and Technology Ministry has developed the EVM in line with the recommendations of ECP.

The ECP-compliant EVM is easy-to-use for all the involved stakeholders. Voters can cast their votes using the EVM with little or no prior knowledge about the EVM while the presiding officers (POs) can easily operate it with little training.

The Minister said that the biggest challenge faced by the government in introducing EVMs in the next general elections is to convince the opposition.

Although it is the right of the opposition to raise concerns on the EVM developed by the Science and Technology Ministry, it should also give the Ministry a chance to address those concerns through a comprehensive demonstration.

He recalled that members of the opposition parties were invited by the Sci-Tech Ministry for the demonstration of the working of EVM but they rejected to be a part of the event.

When asked about the production of EVMs for general elections, the Minister said that the Ministry has partnered with a couple of startups for the mass production of EVMs.

The mass production of the EMVs is not an issue, he told. The startups have a capacity of producing 2,000 EVMs in a day that means 60,000 EVMs can be developed in a month. They can easily manufacture EVMs to hold the general elections in just 6 months.

Besides, the government has also invited both national and international independent election observers for a demonstration of the working of EVM made by the Ministry, the Minister concluded.

Working of EVM

With the passage of Elections Amendment Bill 2021 through the parliament, it is incumbent on the ECP to conduct the next general elections through EVMs.

The Minister was also kind enough to provide an on-camera demonstration of the EVM to the ProPakistani team that interviewed him.

Here is how the EVM actually works.

1. The EVM will be started in the presence of the Polling Agents (PAs) and its seal will be closed.
2. When a voter comes in the Polling Station (PS) to cast their vote, the Presiding Officer (PO) will first manually verify the CNIC of the voter from the voters’ list.
3. After verifying their credentials, the PO will press the “Ballot” button on a smaller module of the EVM to enable it to produce a ballot paper only once for the voter.
4. After this, the voter will head inside the polling booth where a larger module of the EVM will be placed. The voter will see the names and symbols of all the candidates contesting from their constituency on this module.
5. Then the voter will vote for their desired candidate by pressing the button corresponding to the name and symbol of the candidate.
6. After this, the EVM will produce a ballot paper which will be placed inside the ballot box by the voter. The ballot paper produced by the EVM is not an ordinary ballot paper. It uses a special type of paper and has a bar code on it to prevent duplicity.
7. The larger EVM module will be disabled after producing the ballot paper for one voter until the PO again presses the Ballot button on the smaller EVM to enable it for another voter.
8. The same process will be repeated for all voters throughout the elections day until the end of polling time.
9. The seal on the smaller EVM module will be removed after the end of the polling time again in the presence of Polling Agents.

Here is a link to the full interview.