Was not able to vote this time too..

16th April 2009, first phase of voting for the 15th Loksabha began today. I again missed the vote coz I m in Bangalore, and registered as a voter in Baloda Bazar, Dist. Raipur (Chhattisgarh). (I missed the first vote during Nov. 2008 state elections in Chhattisgarh).

Many people miss their valuable votes like this. Electronic voting machines were first used in India in 1982 in a by-election at the Parur assembly constituency of Kerala. The General Elections in 2004 was conducted totally by Electronic voting machines. It was a big improvement to the traditional Paper ballot system.

About 7,700 tons of paper was used for printing of ballot papers in the 1999 general elections, whereas 8,800 tons of paper was used for the purpose in the 1996 general elections. With the electorate going up steadily, more than 10,000 tons of paper would have to be used for this general election if there had been no EVMs. (Source: Mid Day).

These days, everyone in the country who is eligible to vote has a Voter-ID card, and the use of cellular phones have been reached to the remote areas of the country, the election process can be done online, so that no one misses their vote. By doing the process online, I don’t mean that the Government should create a website, and say, visit to the website and cast your vote....

The following can be done: All the polling booths are connected to a central server - as in the Railway reservation system, or the Bank’s ATM Network. A database can be maintained to keep track of all the voters in the country (That means maintaining a HUGE database). The voter will go to the polling booth, the voter-ID card will be checked, and then he will move to the Voting Machine. On Voting machine, he will key-in his Voter-ID, and the contestants for the voter's constituency will be displayed on the voting machine. The voter will cast the vote. Hence, even the people living away from the places where their names have been registered in the electoral lists will be able to cast their votes.

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