Electronic voting machines are used for voting in India. Do you know what an EVM machine is? When was it first used in India? How is voting done? Voting will start in the country in April 2024. Electronic voting machines remain much discussed regarding voting. EVM remains much discussed regarding voting. In India, an EVM machine is used to cast votes. Let us tell you when voting through EVM started in India and in which state it was used for the first time.
What is EVM?
EVM means Electronic Voting Machine. The work of manufacturing EVM machines in India is with two government companies. These companies are Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) located in Bangalore and the other one is Electronic Cooperation of India Limited (ECIL) located in Hyderabad. There are two more units found in EVM, one is the control unit and the other is the ballot unit. The election officer presses the control unit. By pressing it, the ballot unit becomes active and only then the vote is cast. After casting the vote, a sound comes which lets us know that the vote has been cast. After the voting is over, the EVM and VVPAT are kept under security and are taken to the strong room. It is always manned by CRPF personnel and is under 24-hour CCTV surveillance.
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History of EVM
For the first time in India, the Election Commission was given the task of making an EVM machine to ECIL in 1977. In 1979, ECIL introduced the prototype EVM. Which the Election Commission showed to political parties in 1980. After this, the EVM machine was used for the first time in the Kerala Assembly elections in May 1982. At that time there was no law to conduct elections through EVM, due to which the Act was canceled by the Supreme Court.
After this, in 1989, the Representation of the People Act 1951 was amended and the provision of conducting elections through EVM machine was added. Even after the law was made, EVM could not be used for many years. In 1998, elections were held on 25 assembly seats of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi. Voting was done on 45 Lok Sabha seats in 1999. Voting was done on 45 seats in Haryana in 2000. For the first time in 2001, all the legislative assemblies of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, and Kerala were voted through EVM. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, voting was done on all 543 seats through the EVM machine. Since then, in every election, votes have been cast through EVM.
