What is the full form of EVM

EVM: Electronic voting machine

EVM stands for Electronic Voting Machine. It is an electronic machine which is designed to implement electronic voting. It is recently used in 2017 state elections held in five states across India. Today, it has replaced paper ballots in local, state and general (parliamentary) elections in India.

Design

An EVM machine primarily consists of two units; control unit and balloting unit. These two units are joined by a cable. The balloting unit is placed inside the voting compartment and the control unit remains with the polling officer. The balloting unit has blue buttons horizontally labeled with party symbols and corresponding candidate names. The control unit has a "Ballot" marked button. The voter cast his vote by pressing the desired blue button on the balloting unit. As soon as the last voter casts the vote the polling officer press the "Close Button" so that EVM will not accept any vote. After the election ends, the balloting unit is disconnected from the Control Unit and kept separately.

Brief History

• The first voting machine in India was invented by M. B. Haneefa in 1980. The original design of this machine was shown to the public in different Government Exhibitions held in six different cities across Tamil Nadu.
• In 1982, EVM is first used in the election of Paravur constituency in Kerala for a limited number of polling stations.
• In 1989, the EVMs were commissioned by Election Commission of India in collaboration with Electronics Corporation of India Limited.

Benefits

• It reduces the chances of invalid or doubtful votes.
• It offers a faster way of counting votes than conventional system. It saves time and efforts of election officers.
• It is an eco-friendly process as it does not involve the use of paper that helps save trees.
• It is cost-effective process as only one sheet of ballot paper is required in each polling station and the transportation cost of EVM is also less than conventional ballot boxes.
• It can be carried or transported from one place to another without any hassle.
• More people can cast votes in less time.
• The data can be saved for a longer duration of time for future reference.