What are EVMs?

Indian elections depend upon these low-cost, simple machines to register votes.
Though very few countries around the world have switched entirely from paper
ballots to machines in national elections, in India the EVMs are credited with
reducing the amount of voter fraud that took place under the old system. This was
commonly known as “ballot stuffing”, as thugs took over polling booths, kept
genuine voters out and marked ballot papers with the names of the candidate they
favoured.

There are three parts to the machine.

The first is the control unit, which is held by the election officer at every booth.
This collects and records each vote, and has a battery so that the machine doesn’t
depend on erratic power supply to work. The second is the balloting unit, which is
a panel with a series of buttons next to which are the names, party symbols and,
this year, photos of candidates.

Once voters have pressed the button of the candidate, a paper slip is generated and
is displayed for seven seconds before dropping into a storage box. This Voter
Verifiable Paper Audit Trail machine allows voters to check whether the party they
selected was the same as the vote that the EVM registered. Later, these slips can
then be audited against the votes actually counted by the EVM to ensure they tally.

Most importantly, no part of the EVM is “networked”. These are extremely simple
machines, like pocket calculators, with no connection to the internet, no operating
system and no way of being altered without physical access to the machines.

Can the EVM be hacked?

The simple answer is yes, because any machine can be hacked. But it would be
very difficult. As this article explains in detail, since EVMs are not networked,
altering their functioning would require access to the machines themselves. That
means that entities attempting to hack an EVM cannot use remote access, such as
through the internet, and would need physical access to the machines themselves or
their cables, while going unnoticed by (or in collusion with) authorities or other
party agents.

There is a simpler way to manipulate the vote: pressing the button for someone
else. The Election Commission has ordered re-polling in Haryana’s Faridabad after
video clips emerged of a BJP polling agent going up to the balloting unit and
pressing the button before voters had a chance to do so. This sort of blatant fraud is
supposed to be prevented by the commission’s micro observors and by polling
agents of other parties.

What is the latest concern?

Videos and reports from a few places around the country have found EVMs being
transported without the appropriate level of security mandated by the guidelines.
This has led to fears that the ruling party has not hacked the EVMs that people
voted on but is somehow trying to swap actual EVMs with other ones.

The Election Commission has dismissed these claims, saying that the EVMs that
were used to register votes are all in strong rooms that are under 24-hour security,
CCTV scrutiny and more. The Commission claims that the machines in a number
of these videos are “reserve” EVMs, that are usually kept for cases of
malfunctioning at the time of voting.

Despite this clarification, the Commission has not explained why even the reserve
machines are not being transported with appropriate scrutiny, as the guidelines
require.

That said, the Commission has reminded the public that the procedure for counting
votes still includes several other checks to ensure the integrity of the process. Once
voting is complete at booth, the EVMs and VVPATs are “sealed properly in front
of parties’ candidates and videographed. CCTV cameras installed. CAPF security
was present. Candidates are allowed to look at strongrooms at a time and one
representative of each candidate 24×7,” the Election Commission said.

In other words, if the polling agents of political parties have been vigilant, any
concerns about tampering of the actual polled EVMs would have been spotted and
could lead to complaints or even action in court.

What are the older controversies?

There have been concerns about the functioning of EVMs at just about every level,
which might be expected for a large country. Questions about EVMs first
started coming from the Bharatiya Janata Party. It now finds itself in the position
of defending their reliability, while the Opposition has been raising questions about
the functioning of the machines over the last few years.

VVPAT matching

A controversy that emerged over the last few years has been the frequent cases of
EVMs malfunctioning. In many of these cases, it seemed as if no matter what
button you pressed, the VVPAT displayed a vote recorded for the BJP. In
2017, Scroll.in’s Abhishek Dey travelled to several places where such allegations
were being made, only to find that most of the claims about the EVMs favouring
the BJP did not stand scrutiny.

The Opposition has continued to push for greater VVPAT verification, a procedure
in which votes on the EVMs are tallied against the slips on the VVPAT. The
Election Commission rules recommend one booth in every constituency undergo
full VVPAT verification. In April, the Supreme Court expanded this to five booths.
The Opposition, however, has been demanding that 33% to 50% of all booths
should have VVPAT matching.

EVM manufacturing

While most experts admit that actually hacking EVMs would require a massive
effort, some questions have been raised about whether the manipulation takes place
at the manufacturing level itself. The machines are only produced by two Indian
Public Sector Units, with engineers there having no clue where they will be
deployed.

Frontline magazine has earlier used information received in RTI queries to report

on a mismatch between the number of machines that had been manufactured and
the number that had been received by the Election Commission of India. This
mismatch has yet to be explained.

‘Low-frequency signals’

In 2018, with Congress leader Kapil Sibal in attendance, a purported cyber expert
appeared at a press conference in London to explain how EVMs could in fact be
hacked. His argument is that the machines are being hacked by low-frequency
signals, and he claimed that several elections in India have been rigged in the past.
So far, however, none of his claims has stood up to scrutiny, and other portions of
the expert’s story have not been corroborated.

Are there other concerns?

Those defending the Election Commission have rightfully argued that the criticism
of the EVMs from parties tends to ebb and flow depending on their political
fortunes. But for the last two years, much of the Opposition has tried to remain
consistent on this issue.

That said, looking beyond parties, several activists have raised genuine questions
about the design and control of EVMs, and whether the Election Commission’s
processes have been scrutinised and audited adequately. Though it has always been
claimed that EVMs are about impossible to hack, unless done physically at every
booth, technological advances make it vital to be constantly vigilant.

The Election Commission has, however, been prickly about any kind of
questioning regarding EVMs, their design and the way they are handled.
Transparency ought to be built into its procedures, some have argued. The Election
Commission has earned a reputation for trust at least conducting elections (though
perhaps not in uniformly applying the Model Code of Conduct). But, as this piece
argues, rather than presuming it can rest on its laurels, it needs to keep re-earning
that trust.

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The fracas over the Gujarat poll dates has been unedifying. The Election
Commission of India (ECI) has done itself no favours. In the time between the
announcement of the election dates for Himachal Pradesh, and Wednesday, when
the Gujarat dates were announced, the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
government has come up with a raft of sops and schemes. This is not a good look
for the ECI. Former chief election commissioner T.S. Krishnamurthy has rightly
called it an avoidable controversy. Given the circumstances, opposition
disgruntlement is understandable. But there is a significant—if semantically small
—gap between such displeasure and accusing the ECI of actively colluding with
the BJP, as the Congress has done.
Political scientist Devesh Kapur has bracketed the ECI with the presidency and
judiciary as one of the Indian state’s three “institutions of restraint". This is
rarefied company indeed. Public opinion tracks Kapur’s assessment. The
comprehensive three-year State of Democracy in South Asia project begun in 2004
found that the ECI stood second only to the army among state institutions when it
came to public trust.
There is substantive reason for such trust. As with so many foundational aspects of
the state, the liberal democratic instincts of the Constitution’s framers, who
established the ECI as a constitutional body and gave it a robust mandate—and of
the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who scrupulously guarded
that mandate and the ECI’s authority—have stood the country in good stead. That
said, the ECI has taken time to come into its own. In the post-independence
decades when the Congress dominated at the Central and state levels, the body
was, if not collusionary, certainly accommodating. It would take until 1987, when
then chief election commissioner (CEC) R.V.S. Peri Sastri broke from the tradition
of the government telling the CEC when to hold polls, for the ECI to begin turning
the corner.
Come 1991 and the Haryana government was not pleased with T.N. Seshan. The
new CEC was taking on all comers. In a clash over pre-poll transfer orders, Seshan
announced that “when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, one has to
yield". Then came the kicker: “I am going to apply irresistible charm." The
irreverence and chutzpah neatly summed up Seshan’s tenure at the helm of the
ECI. Bureaucrats are not usually the stuff of folklore; Seshan managed it with his
brash expansion of the ECI’s activism and authority. This was partly to the good.
Black money and muscle power were serious problems in the electoral process by
this point. In pushing back, Seshan established the ECI as a moral authority.
His activism was also, however, partly to the bad. There was more than a whiff of
his being enamoured of his own legend in his confrontational approach. The power
an unelected authority wields in a democracy must have certain limits. Seshan
seemed to overlook this point all too often. The political establishment hit back in
1993 when the P.V. Narasimha Rao government appointed two additional election
commissioners (ECs) to dilute Seshan’s power.
Seshan’s immediate successors as CEC, M.S. Gill and then J.M. Lyngdoh, built
upon Seshan’s legacy, if more discreetly. The ECI’s stature had risen by then to the
point that when Lyngdoh took on the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government by
delaying early polls in Gujarat the summer after the Godhra riots—he rightly held
that the electoral process would be too tainted by communal tension—he won the
day. In their potted history of the ECI in Rethinking Public Institutions In India, E.
Sridharan and Milan Vaishnav make the important point that when the Vajpayee
government attempted to reassert itself in 2004 by bringing in retiring cabinet
secretary T.R. Prasad to succeed Lyngdoh, superseding the two ECs, the latter’s
threat to resign stopped the move—because “by now, it had become very important
for the ruling party of the day to not be seen as attempting to undermine the ECI’s
authority".
This gets to the heart of the ECI’s role in the Indian political system. Its normative
authority lends legitimacy to a political establishment that has often struggled for
public trust. The prickly independence that irks political parties also sustains them.
For this, the executive, legislature and judiciary must all share the credit. Even
with numerous confrontations, they have conspired to protect the ECI’s authority
—a welcome display of institutional wisdom.
The ECI is still a work in progress. It has stumbled badly at times. The ugly spat in
2009 between then CEC N. Gopalaswami and EC Navin Chawla, with the former
recommending the latter’s removal on grounds of partisanship, damaged the
institution’s credibility. And its seeking contempt powers earlier this year was an
egregious overstepping of bounds worthy of Seshan. Structurally, the ECs’ lack of
protection from summary removal, such as the CEC enjoys, is a vulnerability. The
body’s enforcement of the model code of conduct depends largely on moral
suasion. Likewise, for all the sterling work it has done in bringing about greater
transparency regarding candidates’ criminal records and the like, numerous
loopholes remain.
But by and large, the ECI functions effectively as a deterrent in India’s political
system. Political parties play along even when it inconveniences them because they
understand that they will some day require the protection it affords weaker actors
from the stronger—those in power. They should remember this when they are
tempted to undermine its authority.
Election Commission of India
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a Constitutional body established by
the Constitution of India to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the
Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, direction, and control of elections to
parliament, state legislatures, the office of the president of India, and the office of vice-president
of India shall be vested in the election commission. Thus, the Election Commission is an all-India
body in the sense that it is common to both the Central government and the state governments.[3]
The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, State Legislative
Assemblies, State Legislative Councils and the offices of the President and Vice President of the
country.[2][4] The Election Commission operates under the authority of Constitution per Article 324,
[5]
 and subsequently enacted Representation of the People Act.[6] The commission has the powers
under the Constitution, to act in an appropriate manner when the enacted laws make insufficient
provisions to deal with a given situation in the conduct of an election. Being a constitutional
authority, Election Commission is amongst the few institutions which function with both autonomy
and freedom, along with the country’s higher judiciary, the Union Public Service Commission and
the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. It is a permanent constitutional body.
The commission was established in 1950 and originally only had one Chief Election
Commissioner. Two additional Commissioners were appointed to the commission for the first
time on 16 October 1989 (on the eve of the 1989 General Election), but they had a very short
tenure, ending on 1 January 1990. "The Election Commissioner Amendment Act, 1989" was
adopted on 1 January 1990 which turned the commission into a multi-member body: a 3-member
Commission has been in operation since then and the decisions by the commission are made by
a majority vote.[2] The Chief Election Commissioner and the two Election Commissioners who are
usually retired IAS officers draw salaries and allowances at par with those of the Judges of
the Supreme Court of India as per the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election
Commissioners (Conditions of Service) Rules, 1992.[7]
The commission is served by its secretariat located in New Delhi.[2] The Election Commissioners
are assisted by Deputy Election Commissioners, who are generally IAS officers. They are further
assisted by Directors General, Principal Secretaries, and Secretaries and Under Secretaries.[2][8]
At the state level, Election Commission is assisted by the Chief Electoral Officer of the State,
who is an IAS officer of Principal Secretary rank. At the district and constituency levels,
the District Magistrates (in their capacity 1`as District Election Officers), Electoral Registration
Officers and Returning Officers perform election work.[2][8]

Removal from office[edit]

The Chief Election Commissioner of India can be represented removed from their office in a
manner similar to the removal of a judge of the Supreme Court of India which requires a
resolution passed by the Parliament of India a two-thirds majority in both the Lok Sabha and
the Rajya Sabha on the grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.
Other Election Commissioners can be removed by the President of India on the recommendation
of the Chief Election Commissioner. A Chief Election Commissioner has never been impeached
in India.
In 2009, just before the 2009 Lok Sabha Elections, Chief Election Commissioner N.
Gopalaswami sent a recommendation to President Prathibha Patil to remove Election
Commissioner Navin Chawla, who was soon to take office as the chief election
commissioner and to subsequently supervise the Lok Sabha general election, a potential conflict
of interest considering his partisan political party behavior.[9] The President opined that such a
recommendation is not binding on the president, and hence rejected it.[10] Subsequently, after
Gopalswami's retirement the next month, Chawla became the chief election commissioner and
supervised the 2009 Lok Sabha general elections.[11]
Functions[edit]
See also: Election Commission of India's Model Code of Conduct

One of the most important features of the democratic policy in India is elections at regular
intervals. Holding periodic, free and fair elections are essentials of a democratic system and a
part of the basic structure of the Constitution. The Election Commission is regarded as the
guardian of elections in the country. In every election, it issues a Model Code of Conduct for
political parties and candidates to conduct elections in a free and fair manner. The commission
issued the Code of Conduct for the first time in 1971 for the 5th Lok Sabha elections and has
revised it from time to time. It lays down guidelines for the conduct of political parties and
candidates during an election period. However, there have been instances of violation of the
code by various political parties with complaints being received for misuse of official machinery
by the candidates.[12][13] The code does not have any specific statutory basis but only a persuasive
effect.[12][13] It contains the rules of electoral morality.[12][13] However, this lack of statutory backing
does not prevent the commission from enforcing it.[12][13][14][15][16]
A law for the registration process for political parties was enacted in 1989 and a number of
parties got registered with the commission.[17] The registration helps avoid confusion and ensures
that the political parties are brought under the purview of the commission.
The election commission has the right to allow symbols to the political parties. It gives recognition
to the national parties, state parties and regional parties. It sets limits on poll expenses. The
commission prepare electoral rolls and update the voter's list from time to time. Notifications of
dates and schedules of election for filing nominations are issued by the commission. It is
noteworthy that Election commission cannot allot same symbol to two regional political parties
even if they are not in the same state.[18]
The commission is empowered with prohibiting dissemination or publication of voting trends that
seek to influence voters by opinion polls or exit polls.[19][20][21]
To curb the growing influence of money during elections, the Election Commission has made
many suggestions and changes in this regard. The commission has appointed IRS officers of the
Income Tax Department as Election Observers (Expenditure) of all elections and has fixed the
legal limits on the amount of money which a candidate can spend during election campaigns.[22]
[23]
 These limits have been revised over time. The Election Commission, by appointing
expenditure observers from the Indian Revenue Service, keeps an eye on the individual account
of election expenditure. The commission takes details of the candidate's assets on affidavit at the
time of submitting nomination paper, who are also required to give details of their expenditure
within 30 days of the declaration of results. The campaign period has also been reduced by the
commission from 21 to 14 days for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to cut down election
expenditure.[24]
In an attempt to decriminalise politics, the Election Commission has approached the Supreme
Court to put a lifetime ban on convicted politicians from contesting elections.[25][26]

Voter Id[edit]
In an effort to prevent electoral fraud, in 1993, EPICs or Electors Photo Identity Cards were
issued, which became mandatory by the 2004 elections. However ration cards have been
allowed for election purposes in certain situations.[27]

RONET[edit]
Software mobile application, developed for Election Commission of India, by 01 Synergy, which
makes the voting process less cumbersome and ensure that the general public is aware of the
candidates in an election. The RONet suite of web and mobile applications is for all stakeholders
involved in the election process. This would help them monitor the assigned tasks at all levels for
the smooth conduct of elections.[28] [29] [30] [31]

ECI360[edit]
ECI 360 mobile application was developed for the general public — which comprises signed and
sworn affidavits of the contesting candidates, a list of rejected candidates, the final list of
candidates, pickup requests for voters with disability, queue status (people waiting in line to cast
votes), real-time poll booth-wise polling percentage, grievance redressal, and the results. The
candidate app of ECI360 allows them to request permissions for rallies and is also mapped with
redressal systems, which ensures that all the issues are sorted at the earliest.” [28] [29] [30] [31]

Voting Procedure[edit]
Voting in India is done using Electronic voting machines or EVMs,[32] there is also a provision for
the Postal voting in India,[33][34] as well as the special arrangements for the disabled voters.[35][36]

Electronic voting machines (EVM)[edit]

India has been the first country to adopt Electronic Voting at such a large scale. Electronic voting
machines (EVM) were introduced by Election Commission in order to reduce malpractices and
improve efficiency. They were tried for the first time on an experimental basis for the
1982 Kerala State Legislative Assembly Elections. After a successful testing and the legal
inquiries, the commission took the decision to begin the use of these voting machines.[32]
The introduction of Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) in eight Lok Sabha constituencies in
2014 Indian General Elections was a big achievement for the Election Commission.[37] This Voter-
verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system was first used with EVMs in a by-poll in September
2013 in Noksen (Assembly Constituency) in Nagaland.[38] and eventually in all elections from
September 2013 onwards in various Legislative elections in the country.

NOTA Voting Symbol in India

Photo electoral rolls with photographs of the candidates on the EVMs were first introduced in
the 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election.[39][40]
In 2014, none of the above or NOTA was also added as an option on the voting machines which
is now a mandatory option to be provided in any election.[41][42] The specific symbol for NOTA, a
ballot paper with a black cross across it, was introduced on 18 September 2015. The symbol has
been designed by National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.[43]
Election Commission organised an open hackathon on 3 June 2017, to attempt hacking of
Electronic Voting Machine used by the commission in various Indian elections.[44]
[45]
 The NCP and CPI(M) were the only two parties that registered for the event but none of them
participated.

The EVM hacking claims remained as allegations only and were usually
used by the parties which lost elections .[46] Functioning of EVMs and
VVPAT machines were demonstrated to the teams.[45][46]

Postal voting[edit]
Postal voting in India is done only through the "Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot Papers
(ETPB)" system of Election Commission of India, ballot papers are distributed to the registered
eligible voters who return the votes by post. Postal votes are counted first before the counting of
votes from the EVM. Only certain categories of people are eligible to register as postal voters.
Employees working in the union armed forces and state police as well as their spouses, and
those working for the Government of India who are officially posted abroad can register for the
postal vote, these are also called the "Service voters". People in preventive detention can use
postal vote. Prisoners can not vote at all.[33][34]

Electors with disabilities[edit]

The Election Commission of India came under severe criticism when an RTI application filed by
activist Dr Satendra Singh revealed the commission's ill-preparedness to safeguard electors with
disabilities in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.[35] There were many violations of the Supreme
Court order from 2014 to enfranchise persons with disabilities

None of the above

"None of the above" (NOTA), or none for short, also known as "against all" or a "scratch"
vote, is a ballot option in some jurisdictions or organizations, designed to allow the voter to
indicate disapproval of the candidates in a voting system. It is based on the principle
that consent requires the ability to withhold consent in an election, just as they can by voting "No"
on ballot questions. It must be contrasted with "abstention", in which a voter does not cast a
ballot.
Entities that include "None of the Above" on ballots as standard procedure include India ("None
of the above"), Indonesia (kotak kosong, empty box), Greece (λευκό, white), the U.S.
state of Nevada (None of These Candidates), Ukraine (Проти всіх, "against
all"), Belarus, Spain (voto en blanco, "white vote"), North Korea and Colombia (voto en
blanco). Russia had such an option on its ballots (Против всех, "against all") until it was
abolished in 2006.[1] Bangladesh introduced this option ("না ভোট" , "No Vote") in 2008.[2] Pakistan
introduced this option on ballot papers for the 2013 Pakistan elections, but the Election
Commission of Pakistan later rejected it.[3] Beginning with the 2016 presidential election,
and 2017 parliamentary one,[4] Bulgaria introduced a 'none of the above' option, which received in
the presidential elections 5.59% of the vote in the first round and 4.47% in the run-off. It was also
used in the 2019 mayoral election of Sofia.[5]
When "None of the Above" is listed on a ballot, there is the possibility of NOTA receiving
a majority or plurality of the vote, and so "winning" the election. In such a case, a variety of
formal procedures may be invoked, including having the office remain vacant[citation needed], having the
office filled by appointment, re-opening nominations[citation needed] or holding another election[citation
needed]
 (in a body operating under parliamentary procedure), or it may have no effect, as in India
and the US state of Nevada, where the next highest total wins regardless.

Advantages and disadvantages of NOTA[edit]

The advantages of a NOTA option include support for freedom of expression. Individuals
possess the formal right to reject all candidates, and express that none are sufficient for
democratic self-determination. NOTA may also increase voter turnout by allowing citizens to vote
for an option contrary to existing options, rather than decline to participate entirely. Accordingly,
movements in the NOTA vote share indicate movements in public opinion.
Disadvantages of a NOTA option include the possibility that it can serve as a spoiler: vote
splitting may cause the defeat of the least-disliked candidate to a more-disliked opponent. And as
with all additional options on a ballot, there are likely to be aministrative costs in processing
votes, and voters who select NOTA without a full understanding of all alternatives. Perhaps most
important is the potential for fallout should NOTA "win" an election, depending on the method of
resolution. Delays may increase, democratic legitimacy may fall, an important office may remain
vacant, or the electorate may end up with an office-holder worse than previous candidates.
Soviet Union[edit]
In the 1990 elections that led to the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Soviet version of "none of
above" led to new elections with new candidates in 200 races of the 1,500-seat Congress of
People's Deputies.[6][7] More than 100 incumbents representing the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union were defeated in the run-off, leading Boris Yeltsin to later say the "none of the above"
option "helped convince the people they had real power even in a rigged election, and [it] played
a role in building true democracy."[6]

Spain[edit]
Blank ballot[edit]
Owing to the Spanish voting regulations (legislación electoral española), (in Spanish) the blank
ballot is recognized as 'none of the above' (voto en blanco) but has very little chance to influence
the distribution of seats within a democratic election. It is mostly considered as a statistical
indicator of candidatures' disapproval. The blank ballots only increase the number of valid votes,
raising the threshold of votes (3% and 5% depending on the election) which every political party
has to overcome to be fully considered. The parties over the threshold get their seats according
to the D'Hondt method.

Blank seats (Escaños en blanco)[edit]

Since 1999, several political parties[8][9][10][11][12] have arisen in order to make visible the 'none of the
above' option in the parliaments and force empty seats. "Blank Seats" ran for the Congress and
Senate elections of 20 November 2011. Its programme is to leave empty the corresponding
assigned seats by not taking full possession of their duties as congressperson, senator, etc.
According to law, the seat remains assigned to the elected candidate until the possession act
takes place, the elected candidate explicitly refuses or new elections are called. In this way, the
political party and its candidates stay free from obligations and are not entitled to receive any
money from the public funding scheme for politics.
By voting such option at the local elections in May 2011, the citizens of the villages
of Gironella (Barcelona) and Foixà (Girona) were able to reduce the number of politicians in their
councils by one and two respectively.[13][14] Overall, citizenship supported Blank Seats at different
municipalities, including Barcelona, with 15,582 votes (averaging 1.71% of valid votes).
The Ciudadanos En Blanco (Citizens for Blank Votes) party aims to give blank ballots the
meaning of representing empty seats if the votes indicate so as for any other party, disbanding
the party when such law would be approved.

United States[edit]
The origins of the ballot option "None of the Above" in the United States can be traced to when
the State of Nevada adopted "None of These Candidates" as a ballot option in 1976.[15] In 1998 in
California, citizen proponents of Proposition 23, titled the "None of the Above Act", qualified a
new State ballot initiative through circulated petitions submitted to the Secretary of State,[16] but
the measure was defeated in the March 2000 general election 64% to 36%.[17] Were it to be
passed by the voters, it was meant to require this new ballot option for all state and federal
elective offices, exempting only local judicial races; in determining official election results, the
"none of the above" voter tally would be discarded in favor of the candidate with the greatest
number of votes.[18][failed verification]
No similar options were known to have been permitted, much less approved, on any other state
levels, least of all the federal level, as of the middle of August 2016.
India[edit]

Symbol used with NOTA option on ballot papers and electronic voting machines in India

Further information: None of the Above in Indian Elections

The Election Commission of India told the Supreme Court in 2009 that it wished to offer the voter
a "none of the above" option on ballots, which the government had generally opposed.
[19]
 The People's Union for Civil Liberties, a non-governmental organisation, filed a public-interest
litigation statement in support of this.[20]
On 27 September 2013, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the right to register a "none of the
above" vote in elections should apply, and ordered the Election Commission to provide such a
button in the electronic voting machines, noting that it would increase participation.[21][22][23][24][25]
The Election Commission also clarified that even though votes cast as NOTA are counted, they
are considered as invalid votes so they will not change the outcome of the election process. They
are not taken into account for calculating the total valid votes and will not be considered for
determining the forfeiture of deposit.[26][27][28][29]
In the 2014 general election, NOTA polled 1.1% of the votes,[30] counting to over 6,000,000.[31]
The specific symbol for NOTA, a ballot paper with a black cross across it, was introduced on 18
September 2015. The symbol is designed by National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.[32][33][34]
If “NOTA” gets more votes than any of the candidates, it means the electorate believes none of
the candidates are fit for the job. In such a case, there should be a re-election in which the
rejected candidates cannot contest. That’s what would make NOTA potent and meaningful. Chief
Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian agreed to entertain a
PIL filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay Mar 16, 2021
Indonesia[edit]

A sample ballot for the uncontested 2018 mayoral elections in Tangerang.

The Indonesian Law 10 of 2016 regulates local elections, and includes provisions for elections in
which there is only one candidate. In such cases, the candidate contests the election against a
NOTA option (commonly referred to as kotak kosong/empty box), and is declared the winner if
they manage to secure a majority of the valid votes. Otherwise, the election will be postponed to
the next occurrence; the government of Indonesia appoints an acting office holder until the new
election, in which the losing candidate is eligible to stand again.[35]
There were 3 uncontested seats in the 2015 local elections, nine in the 2017 local elections,
[36]
 and at least 13 in the 2018 local elections (including the mayoral elections
for Tangerang and Makassar).[37][38] In the 2018 election for mayor of Makassar, the NOTA option
received over 300,000 votes, 35,000 more than the sole candidate, forcing a repeat election in
2020.[39]

United Kingdom[edit]
UK electoral counting procedures require that all votes be counted and announced, including
'rejected' votes. 'Rejected votes' are classified into four categories,[40] protest votes are recorded
with others rejected as 'voter's intention uncertain'.

NOTA UK[edit]
NOTA UK is a voluntary organisation set up in 2010 to campaign for a formal None Of The
Above (NOTA) option to be added to ballot papers for all future UK elections. It has made
numerous written evidence submissions[41] to the parliamentary Political & Constitutional Reform
Committee (PCRC)[42] making the case for NOTA 'with teeth' i.e.: formalised consequences for
the election result in the event of a NOTA 'win' (as opposed to 'faux' NOTA, whereby the next
placed candidate takes office anyway as happens in India and elsewhere). As a result of these
representations, the PCRC explicitly recommended in its final report on 'voter engagement',
published February 2015,[43] that the next UK government should hold a public consultation before
May 2016 solely on inclusion of NOTA on UK ballot papers. This in turn has led to increased
support for and awareness of NOTA UK's campaign and its founder, recording artist and music
producer Jamie Stanley (aka: Mailman), being asked to give a number of media interviews.[44] No
public consultation materialised as the incoming Conservative government scrapped the PCRC,
effectively disregarding all of its recommendations.
Since 2015, in part thanks to NOTA UK's lobbying, it has been a Green Party of England and
Wales policy to get a form of NOTA (RON – Re-Open Nominations) on UK ballot papers.[45] In the
run-up to the 2017 UK general election, NOTA UK wrote to the Green party suggesting that they
should reword the policy so that, instead of RON, it refers specifically to the more self-
explanatory NOTA, and that they should also place the policy centre stage in their next
manifesto.[46]

Above and Beyond Party[edit]

Logo of the Above and Beyond Party

The Above and Beyond Party was founded in 2015 and fielded eight candidates in the 2015
general election, none of whom were elected. Their sole stated policy was to introduce a "none
of the above" option on all UK ballot papers.[47][48] The party's logo is based on the West
African Adinkra symbol "Aya", "derived from a fern tree which famously grows in difficult-to-
survive places", and a symbol of resilience.[49] Critics pointed out that their website and Facebook
page at the time indicated that they had policy ideas and a political agenda beyond the single
issue of NOTA and appeared to be jumping on the bandwagon of other NOTA campaigns.[50]
Inception and officers[edit]
The party registered with the Electoral Commission on 18 March 2015. The Electoral
Commission listed the party leader, nominating officer and campaigns officer as Mark Flanagan
and the treasurer was Karen Stanley.[51] The party chairman was Michael Ross.[52] The party was
de-registered by the Electoral Commission on 3 November 2016.[51]
Electoral history[edit]
Above and Beyond fielded four candidates in the 2015 general election. The candidates stood
in Clwyd West, Cheadle, Sheffield Central and Leeds North West.[53] In Sheffield Hallam the party
endorsed Carlton Reeve, an independent candidate.[54][55] No Above and Beyond candidate
received 5% or more of the votes cast, therefore all lost their deposit.
Finance[edit]
The party raised funds partially through "AboveBeyond" music nights.[56]

No Candidate Deserves My Vote! party[edit]

No Candidate Deserves My Vote! was registered as a political party with the UK Electoral
Commission on 23 November 2000.[57] The No Candidate Deserves My Vote party's single
objective is to introduce a bill to Parliament to have a "none of the above" option added to every
local and general election ballot paper of the future. They feel this will allow the UK electorate to
exercise their democratic right to vote to say that none of the parties currently represents them,
which will encourage their democratic responsibility to turn out to vote. If a candidate wins an
election it is the intention to stay as a Member of Parliament until the change in the law is
enacted. Only then will the candidate step down and the party be disbanded.
It is the intention of the party that, if a NOTA gains the majority vote, it should cause an
automatic by-election, the idea being that the majority will have given a Vote of No Confidence in
the candidates. If the same candidates stand under the same policies, then the electorate simply
votes NOTA until the candidates change their policies to something that the electorate can vote
for.
In 2010, Stephen Phillips of Stevenage ran for the UK general election on behalf of No Candidate
Deserves My Vote.[58] Phillips received 327 votes, or 0.7% of the vote, placing 7th out of 9
candidates.[59]

NOTA party[edit]
The NOTA Party, in recent years also known as Notavote, was registered as a political party with
the UK Electoral Commission on 2 March 2009.[60] It was the intention of the NOTA party to field
candidates in every UK parliamentary constituency. The respective NOTA candidates would not
have continued in office had they received the most votes, this was merely a mechanism to
simulate the recording of a formal NOTA vote. The party was registered as 'NOTA' and not 'None
of the Above' as the latter is a prohibited expression regarding registration as a party name.[61] A
subsequent attempt to re-register the NOTA party in 2014 was blocked by the Electoral
Commission[62] on the grounds that the acronym 'NOTA' is as good as the phrase 'None of the
Above', the logic being that it would confuse voters into thinking it is possible to cast a formal
vote for 'None of the Above' when they would in fact just be voting for another party, albeit one
standing on a single issue NOTA platform.

Zero, None Of the Above[edit]

None Of The Above Zero was a candidate at the 2010 general election in Filton and Bradley
Stoke.[63] Previously known as Eric Mutch, he changed his name by deed poll to stand under that
name. As candidates are listed by surname first he appeared on the ballot paper as "Zero, None
Of The Above",[64] in effect giving voters a none of the above option since had he been elected he
would have resigned immediately.[65] He came last with 172 votes.[66]

Others[edit]
In the British parliamentary elections of 2010, a former boxer changed his name by deed
poll from Terry Marsh to "None Of The Above X", in order to run as a parliamentary candidate
under that name in the constituency of South Basildon and East Thurrock. Claiming that he will
not take the seat if he wins, he told BBC Essex: "I don't take it for one moment that it would be a
vote for me. [..] I'm doing what I think the Electoral Commission should be doing and what should
be on every ballot paper in any electoral process." BBC News reported that, while the
Registration of Political Parties (Prohibited Words and Expressions) (Amendment) Order 2005
stipulates that no political party can be registered in the UK under the name "None of the Above",
there is no legislation against a person changing their name by deed poll and appearing on the
ballot paper as "None Of the Above".[67] In the event he polled 0.3% of the vote, the lowest of any
candidate standing.[68]

 Another individual changed his name by deed poll to "None Of The Above" in order
to stand as a candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green in 2010.[69] With the
surname Above, he was listed first on the ballot paper in alphabetical order, with all
the other candidates listed below.
 The South Wales Anarchists group has run a campaign urging people to "Vote
Nobody" since 2008[70] and many other anarchist groups worldwide have promoted
similar slogans.
 The Landless Peasant Party, which advocates the ownership of land by those who
live on it and the replacement of income tax by a flat land tax,[71] and whose leader
Derek Jackson gained publicity for standing against then- Prime Minister Gordon
Brown in his home constituency in the 2010 elections,[72] include a pledge to add a
"None of the above" option to the ballot in all UK elections.[71]
Canada[edit]
No electoral jurisdiction in Canada formally lists "none of the above" as a ballot option. However,
in some provincial elections it is effectively possible to vote for "none of the above", by attending
the polling station and formally "declining to vote".[73] These declined votes are counted and
become part of the electoral record.
A businessman in Prince George, British Columbia ran in the 1997 federal election in the district
of Prince George—Bulkley Valley[74] under the name Zznoneoff, Thea Bove (Thea Bove
Zznoneoff); ballots listing candidates alphabetically by surname, he appeared at the bottom. He
came sixth of seven candidates with 0.977 percent of votes cast.
A resident of Oshawa, Ontario, formerly known as Sheldon Bergson, had legally changed his
name to "Above Znoneofthe",[75] and had registered under that name as a candidate in several
provincial and federal by-elections, most recently the Markham—Thornhill by-election of 3 March
2017. His name order was chosen so that his name would always appear at the bottom of the
ballot as "Znoneofthe, Above", although this only works federally as provincial election ballots do
not list the candidates in surname order.[76]
In Ontario, the None of the Above Party of Ontario is a registered political party, although its
stated mandate is for its candidates to serve in the legislature as independent representatives
who reflect the views and interests of their constituents, rather than simply as a "reject all of the
candidates" placeholder.

Norway[edit]
The Norwegian election regulation makes it mandatory to present voters with blank ballots in
addition to all of the approved parties and election lists. In the parliamentary election of 2013,
12,874 votes, which is 0.45% of the total votes given, were blank.

None of the Above candidates and parties in other countries [edit]

 In Serbia, None of the above (Ниједан од понуђених одговора, НОПО) is a

parliamentary political party, legally formed in 2010, which was mostly popularized
on Facebook and less so on other social networking websites. In 2012 Serbian
parliamentary election they received 22,905 votes, and thus won one seat in
the National Assembly of Serbia.
 Geoff Richardson changed his full name to "Of The Above None" and stood as an
independent for the seat of Gilmore at the 2007 Australian federal election. His name
appeared as NONE, Of the Above on the ballot.[77]
 In 2010 Ukrainian presidential election, a candidate Vasiliy Humeniuk changed his
name to Vasily Protyvsih (Vasily Against-all). "Against all candidates" is the name of
the "none of the above" vote used in Russia and Ukraine.[78][79]
 In 2000, Michael Moore advocated a write-in candidate Ficus (the plant) for
Congress as a unified vote for none of the above in congressional seats where the
incumbent was running unopposed.[80]
 David Gatchell of Tennessee ran for governor in 2002 and for Senate in 2006 as a
protest, officially changing his middle name from Leroy to None of the Above.[81] In
2006, he got 3,738 votes (0.2 percent).
 For the 2013 Pakistani general election, the Election Commission of
Pakistan unilaterally decided that a 'none of the above' box would be available as a
voting option on ballot papers.[3] However, the commission subsequently decided
against it owing to the short amount of time remaining till the elections.[82] The concept
was suggested to the Election Commission by Abid Hassan Manto, a constitutional
expert and a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.[83]
 Elections in South Ossetia have an "against all" option.
 Elections in Abkhazia have a "None of the above" option.
  In 2021, the States Assembly of the Bailiwick of Jersey voted to introduce a 'None of
the Above' ballot option for uncontested elections, which is set to debut at the 2022
Jersey general election. This has been designed as a means to eliminate fully
uncontested elections to the Island's parliament. If the number of candidates
standing for election is equal to or fewer than the available vacancies, voters will
have the option to vote for 'None of the Above' to reject the candidate and hold a new
election, effectively functioning as a confirmatory ballot.[84]

Procedures that function like "none of the above" [edit]

Most ballots do not have a formal "none of the above" option, but do have procedures that work
in a similar way.

Argentina[edit]
In Argentina casting an envelope without a ballot in a ballot box counts as a blank vote.

Poland[edit]
In 1989 legislative election in Poland voters were able to vote against the only candidate running,
often from the ruling Polish United Workers' Party by crossing out the candidate's name on the
ballot.[6] As a result, voters defeated the sitting prime minister and dozens of leading Communists
because they failed to get the required majority.[6]

Re-open Nominations (RON)[edit]

Many students' unions in Britain, Ireland, and others[85] use a similar ballot option called 're-open
nominations' (RON)[86] in IRV and single transferable vote (STV) elections. These include
the National Union of Students in the UK and UCD Student's Union in Ireland. The difference is
that RON is a vote against all candidates in FPTP (first-past-the-post) and all subsequent
candidates in an IRV or STV election.
RON is not strictly a none of the above candidate in transferable vote elections, as when RON
is eliminated during the count its votes are transferred to other candidates if those preferences
exist.

Illegal ballots in Robert's Rules of Order[edit]

The American Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR) describes various forms of illegal
ballots, which are ballots which do not count for any candidate. Blanks are treated as "scrap
paper", and are of no effect, but "unintelligible ballots or ballots cast for an unidentifiable
candidate or a fictional character are treated as illegal votes. All illegal votes cast by legal
voters… are taken into account in determining the number of votes cast for purposes of
computing the majority." RONR always requires a majority for election; thus, casting an illegal
ballot or one for a hopeless candidate, whether on the ballot or as a write-in, is equivalent to
voting No for all other candidates. "The principle is that a choice has no mandate from the voting
body unless approval is expressed by more than half of those entitled to vote and registering any
evidence of having some opinion."[87][88]

No award[edit]
Voting for the Hugo Awards is by instant runoff voting, in which nominees for a category are
ranked. There are normally seven options: six nominees, plus "No Award". A first preference vote
for no award implies that the voter believes that either the category should be abolished, or that
none of the nominees are worthy of an award. A second or subsequent preference implies that
any higher-ranked nominees are worthy of an award, while those ranked lower are not.

vvpat
Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR) is a method of
providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an
independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their
vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means
to audit the stored electronic results. It contains the name of the candidate (for whom vote has
been cast) and symbol of the party/individual candidate.
The VVPAT offers some fundamental differences as a paper, rather than electronic recording
medium when storing votes. A paper VVPAT is readable by the human eye and voters can
directly interpret their vote. Computer memory requires a device and software which potentially
is proprietary. Insecure voting machine[1] records could potentially be changed quickly without
detection by the voting machine itself. It would be more difficult for voting machines to corrupt
records without human intervention. Corrupt or malfunctioning voting machines might store votes
other than as intended by the voter unnoticed. A VVPAT allows voters to verify their votes are
cast as intended and this system can serve as an additional barrier to changing or destroying
votes.
The VVPAT includes a direct recording electronic voting system (DRE), to assure voters that
their votes have been recorded as intended. It is intended, and some argue necessary, as a
means by which to detect fraud and equipment malfunction. Depending on election laws the
paper audit trail may constitute a legal ballot and therefore provide a means by which a manual
vote count can be conducted if a recount is necessary. The solution was first demonstrated (New
York City, March 2001)[citation needed] and used (Sacramento, CA 2002) by AVANTE International
Technology, Inc.[citation needed].
In non-document ballot voting systems – both mechanical voting machines and DRE voting
machines – the voter does not have an option to review a tangible ballot to confirm the voting
system accurately recorded his or her intent. In addition, an election official is unable to
manually recount ballots in the event of a dispute. Because of this, critics claim there is an
increased chance for electoral fraud or malfunction and security experts, such as Bruce
Schneier, have demanded voter-verifiable paper audit trails.[2] Non-document ballot voting
systems allow only a recount of the "stored votes". These "stored votes" might not represent the
correct voter intent if the machine has been corrupted or suffered malfunction.
A fundamental hurdle in the implementation of paper audit trails is the performance and authority
of the audit. Paper audit systems increase the cost of electronic voting systems, can be difficult
to implement, often require specialized external hardware, and can be difficult to use. In the
United States, 27 states require a paper audit trail by statute or regulation for all direct recording
electronic voting machines used in public elections.[3] Another 18 states do not require them but
use them either statewide or in local jurisdictions.[4] Five US states basically have no paper trail.[5]
In India, the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system was introduced in 8 of 543
parliamentary constituencies as a pilot project in 2014 Indian general election.[6][7][8][9] VVPAT was
implemented in Lucknow, Gandhinagar, Bangalore South, Chennai
Central, Jadavpur, Raipur, Patna Sahib and Mizoram constituencies.[10][11][12][13][14][15] Voter-verifiable
paper audit trail was first used in an election in India in September 2013 in Noksen (Assembly
Constituency) in Nagaland.[16][17] VVPAT along with EVMs was used on a large-scale for the first
time in India,[18] in 10 assembly seats out of 40 in 2013 Mizoram Legislative Assembly election.
[19]
 VVPAT -fitted EVMs was used in entire Goa state in the 2017 assembly elections, which was
the first time that an entire state in India saw the implementation of VVPAT.[20][21] voter-verified
paper audit trail (VVPAT) system which enables electronic voting machines to record each vote
cast by generating the EVM slip, was introduced in all 543 Lok sabha constituencies in 2019
Indian general election.
When a voter casts a vote on a direct-recording voting machine, the voter "has no knowledge
through his senses that he has accomplished a result. The most that can be said, is, if the
machine worked as intended, then he ... has voted."[24] This observation was made by Horatio
Rogers in 1897, and it remains as true with DRE voting machines as it was with the early
mechanical voting machines that Rogers spoke about.
In 1899, Joseph Gray addressed this problem with a mechanical voting machine that
simultaneously recorded votes in its mechanism and punched those votes on a paper ballot that
the voter could inspect before dropping it in a ballot box. Gray explained that "in this manner, we
have a mechanical check for the tickets [ballots], while the ticket is also a check upon the register
[mechanical vote counter]."[25] This check is only effective, of course, if there is an audit to
compare the paper and mechanical records.
The idea of creating a parallel paper trail for a direct-recording voting mechanism remained
dormant for a century, until it was rediscovered by Rebecca Mercuri, who suggested essentially
the same idea in 1992.[26] The Mercuri method, as some have called it, was refined in her Ph.D.
dissertation in October 2000; in her final version, the paper record is printed behind glass so that
the voter may not take it or alter it.[27]
The first commercial voting systems to incorporate voter verifiable paper audit trail printers were
the Avante Vote Trakker and a retrofit to the Sequoia AVC Edge called the VeriVote Printer.
[28]
 Avante's system saw its first trial use in 2002, and in 2003, the state of Nevada required the
use of VVPAT technology statewide and adopted the Sequoia system. It is notable that, in
Avante's design, the shield preventing the voter from taking the paper record was an
afterthought, while in Sequoia's design, the paper record for successive voters were printed
sequentially on a single roll of paper.

Exit poll
An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling
stations. A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is called an entrance poll.
Pollsters – usually private companies working for newspapers or broadcasters – conduct exit
polls to gain an early indication as to how an election has turned out, as in many elections the
actual result may take hours or even months to count. There are different views on who invented
the exit poll. Marcel van Dam, Dutch sociologist and former politician, claims to be the inventor,
by being the first to implement one during the Dutch legislative elections on February 15, 1967.
[1]
 Other sources say Warren Mitofsky, an American pollster, was the first. For CBS News, he
devised an exit poll in the Kentucky gubernatorial election in November that same year.[2][3] Not
withstanding this, the mention of the first exit polls date back to the 1940s when such a poll was
held in Denver, Colorado.[4][failed verification]

Purpose[edit]
Exit polls are also used to collect demographic data about voters and to find out why they voted
as they did. Since actual votes are cast anonymously, polling is the only way of collecting this
information.
Exit polls have historically and throughout the world been used as a check against, and rough
indicator of, the degree of election fraud. Some examples of this include the 2004 Venezuelan
recall referendum, and the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.
They are used to command a mandate as well as to determine whether or not a
particular political campaign was successful or not.

Methods[edit]
The distribution of votes is not even across different polling stations, and also varies at different
times of day. As a result, a single exit poll may give an imperfect picture of the national vote.
Instead, some exit polls calculate swing and turnout. Pollsters return to the same polling stations
at the same times at each election, and by comparing the results with previous exit polls they can
calculate how the distribution of votes has changed in that constituency. This swing is then
applied to other similar constituencies, allowing an estimate of how national voting patterns have
changed. The polling locations are chosen to cover the entire gamut of society and where
possible, to include especially critical marginal seats.[5][6][7] Data is presented in one of three ways,
either as a table, graph or written interpretation.[8]
US exit polls have long been conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool of
media organizations, interviewing a sample of voters as they leave a polling place. These
pollsters choose precincts whose mix of voters is representative of the broader area. These
voters may not be typical. For example minority voters in a mixed precinct may vote at different
rates and for different candidates than minority voters in a mostly minority precinct.
[9]
 The Associated Press since 2018 has switched to phone polling, which does not need to be
grouped by precinct. They start calling a random sample of voters until they vote, to cover mailed
ballots, early voting, and election day voting.[9]

Problems[edit]
Like all opinion polls, exit polls by nature do include a margin of error. A famous example of exit
poll error occurred in the 1992 UK General Election, when two exit polls predicted a hung
parliament. The actual vote revealed that Conservative Party Government under John Major held
their position, though with a significantly reduced majority. Investigations into this failure identified
a number of causes including differential response rates (the Shy Tory Factor), the use of
inadequate demographic data and poor choice of sampling points.[10][11]
Because exit polls require a baseline to compare swing against, they are not reliable for one-off
votes such as the Scottish independence referendum or the UK EU membership referendum.[5]
[6]
 Because exit polls can't reach people who voted by postal ballot or another form of absentee
voting, they may be biased towards certain demographics and miss swings that only occur
among absentee voters.[7] For example, in the May round of the 2016 Austrian presidential
election, exit polls correctly pointed to a narrow lead for Norbert Hofer among those who voted at
a polling station.[12] However, the postal votes (which made up about 12% of the total vote)[13] were
slightly but definitively in favour of his rival Alexander Van der Bellen, and ultimately gave Van
der Bellen victory. This could be considered a non-U.S. example of the phenomenon known as
"blue shift" in the U.S.

Organizations that conduct election exit polling [edit]

In the United States, the National Election Pool (NEP), consisting of ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, FOX
News, and NBC, conducts a joint election exit poll. Since 2004 this exit poll has been conducted
for the NEP by Edison Media Research. Edison uses probability-based sampling.[14] In 2020, in-
person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 115 polling locations
nationwide among 7,774 Election Day voters. The results also include 4,919 telephone
interviews with early and absentee voters.[15]
The release of exit poll data in the US is controlled. In the 2012 election protocols to quarantine
the release of data were put in place.[16]
In Egypt, the Egyptian center for public opinion research (baseera) conducted in 2014 two exit
polls; the constitution referendum exit poll and the presidency elections exit polls.
In South Korea, KBS, SBS, and MBC conducted a joint exit poll to decide the president of the
country.
In India, the exit polls are conducted by private news broadcasting channels and newspaper
agencies such as The Times Group, CVoter, India Today,etc. India being the largest democracy
in the world has many agencies publishing exit polls which roughly predict the outcome of the
elections.[1]

Criticism and controversy[edit]

Widespread criticism of exit polling has occurred in cases, especially in the United States, where
exit-poll results have appeared and/or have provided a basis for projecting winners before all real
polls have closed, thereby possibly influencing election results. States have tried and failed to
restrict exit polling; however, it is protected by the First Amendment.[17] In the 1980 US
presidential election, NBC predicted a victory for Ronald Reagan at 8:15 pm EST, based on exit
polls of 20,000 voters. It was 5:15 pm on the West Coast, and the polls were still open. There
was speculation that voters stayed away after hearing the results.[18] Thereafter, television
networks have voluntarily adopted the policy of not projecting any victor within a state until all
polls have closed for that state.[19] In the 2000 US presidential election it was alleged that media
organizations released exit poll results for Florida before the polls closed in the Republican-
leaning counties of the panhandle, as part of the westernmost area of the state is one hour
behind the main peninsula. A study by economist John Lott found an "unusual" decline in
Panhandle voter turnout compared to previous elections, and that the networks' early call of
Florida for Democrat Al Gore may have depressed Republican turnout in other states where the
polls remained open.[20]
Some countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany, have made it a criminal
offence to release exit poll figures before all polling stations have closed, while others, such as
Singapore, have banned them altogether.[21] In some instances, problems with exit polls have
encouraged polling groups to pool data in hopes of increased accuracy. This proved successful
during the 2005 UK general election, when the BBC and ITV merged their data to show an exit
poll giving Labour a majority of 66 seats, which turned out to be the exact figure. This method
was also successful in the 2007 Australian federal election, where the collaboration of Sky
News, Channel 7 and Auspoll provided an almost exact 53 percent two party-preferred victory
to Labor over the ruling Coalition.
There was a widespread controversy during the 2014 Indian general election when the Election
Commission of India barred media organisations from displaying exit poll results until the votes
had been counted. This was followed by a strong protest from the media which caused the
Election Commission to withdraw its statement and confirm that the exit polls can be shown at
6:30 PM on 12 May after the last vote is cast. Since then exit polls (during polling window) are
prohibited in India, only post poll opinion surveys are allowed after polling is over.
Changing method of voting in India
In the first general election in 1952, there was a box with the name of
the candidate and his/her election symbol. Each voter was given a blank
ballot paper to be dropped into the box of the candidate of his or her choice.
After the first two elections this method was changed. Now the ballot
paper carried the names and symbols of all the candidates. The voter was
required to put the stamp on the name of the candidate of his/her choice. This
was to be placed inside a box common for all. This system continued for years. 
Towards the end of 1990’s the Election Commission started using the EVM’s or
Electronic Voting Machines. Now this is used all over India.
In the first general election, Steel ballot boxes were placed inside the polling
booth for each candidate. Each voter was given a blank ballot paper to be
dropped in the box of the preferred candidate. Each box displayed the
candidate name and his symbol, both inside and outside the box. Ballot papers
were introduced only after the second general election. It had the names and
s2ymbols of all the candidates contesting in the election. The voter had to put a
stamp on the name of the preferred candidate. During the end of 199Os, the
election commission started using electronic voting machine-EVM. It had the
names and symbols of all the candidates contesting in the election. The voter
has to press a button against the name of the preferred candidate.

  It was decided to place inside each polling booth a box for each candidate
with the election symbol of that candidate. Each voter was given a blank
ballot which they had to drop into the box of the candidate they wanted to
vote for. About 20 lakh steel boxes were used for this purpose. After first
two elections, this method was changed. Now the ballot paper carried the
names and symbols of all the candidates and the voter was required to put
a stamp on the name of the candidate they wanted to vote for. This method
worked for nearly forty years. Towards the end of 1990s, the Election
Commission started using the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). By
today, the entire country had shifted to the EVM.