The world’s biggest democracy - India is going to polls in few days and lack of online voting option is frustrating for lot of citizens. The 20 million plus NRI community, which has been fighting for their right to vote in Supreme Court, for more than 10 years now will not be able to participate in the elections. Another 300 million, around 1/3rd of registered voters, would not be able to vote as citizens migrate from one part of the country to another for various reason including studies, job, marriage etc. As per Lost votes campaign of Times of India, 90% of the voters who did not vote in 2014 actually couldn’t due to lack of remote voting option.
Online voting is mandatory under certain laws
Technology is not a limitation. The government of India itself has certified Right2Vote’s online voting platform for security, functionality and quality. The government of India itself made it compulsory under The New Companies Act 2013 for all listed companies to provide eVoting facility to shareholders way back in 2014. Recently, the Government has made providing eVoting facility to creditors compulsory under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. This proves that Government of India appreciates that online voting is important for protection of ‘right to vote’ of people. This also proves that Government of India has full confidence in security, functionality and quality of online voting platform like Right2Vote. The question is why the same politicians do not want themselves to be subject to the same secure, transparent and efficient technology which they are enforcing on companies and other organizations. Why they want to keep fighting about security of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) when much more advanced and secure technology is already available and certified by them.
Unique about Right2Vote’s technology
Founded in 2015 by CA Neeraj Gutgutia, an alumni of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore and Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) Right2Vote is a startup accelerated by NASSCOM 10000 Startups, Facebook's Fbstart, Village Capital and Omidyar Network. It has won several awards for innovation and technology from prestigious institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta.
Right2Vote Infotech Private limited is not the only company which is certified by the Government of India. Three other companies - CDSL, NSDL and Karvy are also certified by Government of India. However, unlike other companies, Right2Vote is a focused online voting technology company and hence have very high end and unique security and transparency features. Right2Vote has filed 7 patents for various voting related technological innovations they have done over the last few years.
Few of the unique features offered by Right2Vote include:
- Secret Ballot
- Audit Trail
- Server Confirmation
- Vote Record
- Voter receipt
- Double authentication
- Aadhaar based authentication
- Personalized notification and reminders to voters
- Anywhere voting via website, Android and iOS app
- Geo-Tagging
- Geo-Fencing
- Voter Selfie
- Dynamic nomination
- Team election
- Single Transferable Preference Vote (STPV) system
- Candidate picture and symbol display
- Automatic counting and Instant results
- Safeguards against human error by voters
Benefits of Online Voting
The Right2Vote’s online voting platform is not only highly secure but its also very user-friendly. The UI/UX of the platform is designed to ensure illiterate, old and physically challenged people are also able to use the platform with ease. A voter can complete the voting activity in less than a minute on the platform.
More than 100 companies are using Right2Vote’s online voting technology on regular basis. Apart from companies, organizations like colleges, housing societies, clubs, professional associations are regularly using Right2Vote’s online voting technology to empower their members. Reputed institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore, Indian Society for Particle Accelerators (ISPA), Lavasa property owner’s association have already moved to efficient online voting technology of Right2Vote. Even Maharashtra State Election Commission is running a pilot project with Right2Vote for panchayat elections.
Online voting is not only about empowering voters and increasing the voter turnout. It is also much more efficient then offline voting. It is estimated that India would spend $ 7 billion on General Election 2019. Online voting can help saving 90% of the money which can be used for key election issues like bailing out the farmers and buying advanced fighter jets for the country.
Not only money – offline elections also lead to waste of human resource. One crore people would be managing the 2019 general elections. Among the one crore election workers are essential service providers like school teachers, IAS officers, government servants. Many schools would be closed and several essential government services would be delayed due to the elections.
More than 10 lakhs booths would be created across the country in schools and other important building leading to suspension of work. On election days, holiday would be declared so that voters find time to stand in a queue and vote. Voters would waste hours to travel to booth and stand in queue. GDP loss due to lost working hours would be in billions of dollars.
The whole country would be on a stand still for more than 60 days due to Election Code of Conduct which is already in force. No major decision can be taken by the government till 23 May 2019. It will take 4 days from the last polling day just to count votes and declare the results. With online voting, the total election process can be managed in 2 to 3 days saving lot of time and money for this still-developing country.
Countries like Estonia has implemented online voting way back in 2005. Hence, online voting is nothing new. India has been using online technology for equally critical activities like banking, aviation, stock exchange, defence communication etc. Hence, avoiding online voting due to security concerns is a lame excuse. India prides itself as producer of the best IT talents in the world. It is time now for India to use the talent of its people to solve the problems of its people. Loss of right to vote is one such major problem. And living up to its name, Right2Vote Infotech already has the solution ready which is already tested and certified by Government of India itself. The only thing that is required now is political will and positive intention to make the elections more secure, efficient and transparent.
About Right2Vote Infotech Private Limited
Right2Vote Infotech Pvt Limited was founded in 2015 by CA Neeraj Gutgutia, an alumni of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore and Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). The company is accelerated by NASSCOM, Facebook, Village Capital and Omidyar Network. It has won several awards for innovation and technology from prestigious institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta. For more details about the online voting technology of Right2Vote, you can visit https://right2vote.in/ or write to neeraj@right2vote.in