An EVM Can Handle a Max of 16 Candidates: But How About 185?

Since 2013, the new EVMs can be connected in series to handle a total of 384 candidates including the NOTA option.

An EVM in India has only 16 options per machine. What happens if there are more candidates?

Photo: PTI

Electronic voting machines can handle only 16 candidate choices per machine. What happens if there are more than 16 candidates in a constituency. Like 185 candidates for instance, in Nizamabad constituency in Telengana.

In fact, Telengana has the highest number of candidates in the fray, with a total of 443, of which Nizamabad has 185, after a bunch of farmers filed their nominations as independents. This has led to a problem – a technical one at that.

The problem: The infrastructure is not ready to handle a large number of candidates in a single polling booth, as each machine can handle only 16 candidates’ names. Or is it?

To find out, we spoke with Dr S Y Quraishi, former chief election commissioner, on how the Election Commission deals with such a situation.

It turns out, the technology has been made scalable! If there are more than 16 candidates, four EVMs (or balloting units as they are called) can be connected in series to a single master controller to handle 64 candidates.

This led to a situation in 2010 in Telengana again, where there were more than 64 candidates fielded by the TRS party in each constituency, which forced the Election Commission at that time to revert to paper ballots for the polling in that area. Of course, it took far longer to count the votes.

Dr S Y Quraishi, former chief election commissioner

However, in 2013, newer model EVMs were introduced (M3 EVMs) which can handle up to 384 candidates in a single polling station, by connecting 24 balloting units in series to a single master control unit. And this includes the option for NOTA (none of the above) on the machine, in case one does not want to select any candidate from the list.

Election commission officials demonstrating the handling of EVM in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, 26 April 2016.Photo: PTI

To make this process verifiable, the Election Commission has introduced a voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system, where a machine next to the balloting machine prints a piece of paper with the voter’s choice and that disappears into the machine after 7 seconds. This is meant to cross check votes, in case there are allegations of EVM hacking.

EVMs are safe and now that you have the VVPAT system, it is almost foolproof. I think EVM is the way to go for these elections as its easier to handle and the issues of handling ballot boxes don’t arise.

Dr S Y Quraishi, former chief election commissioner

For the Nizamabad constituency polling in Telengana, it has been decided that polling will take place with EVMs only. Each EVM or balloting unit costs Rs 17,000. The ECI will have to supply 26,820 EVMs, 2,240 control units and additional VVPATs just for this constituency. Guess whose pocket this comes out of? Yours dear voting taxpayer.