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CHANDIGARH/NEW DELHI, October 10: Senior Congress leader and former Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari has said that voting through the internet can be possible after “agreed rules of engagement in cyber-space, trust and ownership of the processes are sorted out”.
Speaking at a conference, ‘Democracy Rebooted; The Future of Technology in Elections’, organised by the Atlantic Council, a leading US think-tank in Washington on Friday, Tewari spoke about the successful use of electronic voting machines in india during the elections.
He said, india had set a great example by successfully introducing the EVMs, which had not been done in many technologically developed countries. In this context, he was asked, based on the success of the EVMs, whether it was possible that the elections at the national, state and local level can be moved on the internet.
“This is very much possible”, the senior Congress leader said, while adding, “various issues of engagement must be sorted out first to make the process foolproof and credible”.
Earlier, the conference was inaugurated by Madeline Albright, the former Secretary of State of the United States. The participants included Matt Masterson Commissioner Electoral Assistance Commission United States, Tadjoudine Ali-Diabacte, the Director of the Electoral Assistance Division, the United Nations and Justice Jose Antonio Dias Toffoli President of the Supreme Electoral Court Brazil (like the CEC in India)
Tewari said, the conference mainly deliberated on the themes as why was electronic voting a success in some countries and not others. Asking as why was there wider success in the developing world, it pointed out, the largest democracy in the world, India, and the largest democracy in Latin America, Brazil, both conduct their elections entirely electronically, while counties like the United States, the Netherlands and Ireland have failed to do so.
