Bihar Becomes The Second Indian State after Gujarat to Introduce eVoting
Online voting is something that should have been introduced 20 years ago in India to make the democratic process more inclusive, secure and transparent. Countries like Estonia have been offering their citizens the right to vote online since 2005.
Online voting has many advantages:
- Higher voter turnout
- Ensuring the right to vote for all
- Better voter authentication
- Better security & transparency
- Convenience for voters
- Cost saving
- Time saving
- Automated and instant result calculation
- Elimination of errors in vote counting
Indian citizens have been demanding the right to vote online for many years now. Non-Resident Indians and other citizens have even moved to the Supreme Court demanding the right to vote online. The Supreme Court has asked the government and the Election Commission to find solutions for these non-resident voters to be able to vote.
However, to date, the government has not shown real initiative. Politicians make a lot of noise about the need to adopt advanced technology, but when it comes to the election, they want to go back to primitive paper-based voting as it is easier to manipulate.
Recently, Bihar announced that the Bihar State Election Commission (BSEC) is introducing online voting via a mobile app in the municiple elections. The news has created a lot of excitement in the media and among the citizens. This is an amazing initiative by BSEC, and they should be applauded for it.
Gujarat was the first state to introduce online voting way back in 2011
Similar to Bihar’s initiative in 2025, way back in 2011, the Gujarat State Election Commission’s (GSEC) initiative was applauded and created a lot of excitement. This initiative was conferred a Bronze award in the category of “Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering” in the National e-Governance Awards, 2013. The GSEC claimed that in the April 2011 election, 77.16% of registered voters cast their votes online, either from their home computers or from kiosks. 77.16% sounds like a commendable number; however, it hides more than it reveals. Less than 1000 people actually voted in the election. As the number of voters registered for online voting was low, the percentage of registered voters who voted was 77%.
GSEC spent more than 25 crores on this initiative, and got less than 1000 voters. And hence, after 2015, it withdrew the initiative.
What went wrong with GSEC’s online voting initiative, and what BSEC should avoid?
There is a detailed analysis of Gujarat’s failed attempt at online voting available on the internet.
If we look closely, the reason the initiative failed was the difficult process of registration. Very few people actually registered for the online process. The whole process was so bureaucratic that it defeated the whole purpose of introducing online voting.
And we are sorry to say that BSEC is repeating the same mistake, and hence their initiative will also fail. The purpose of online voting is to make it convenient for citizens to vote. Online voting can enable them to vote within seconds from anywhere. However, if they are supposed to go through a long and complicated registration process to opt for online voting, not many would be interested.
Aadhaar Linking
India already has an amazing database of citizens in the form of Aadhaar. The state election commission should link the Aadhaar and the voter database of the state. Once the Aadhaar database and voter list have been linked, the voter can be easily authenticated by Aadhaar-based OTP (One Time Password). The whole UPI revolution in India is working on this method, and there is no reason why it will not work for online voting. This can completely eliminate the need for pre-registration.
The online voting window should be open one day in advance of the election date so that the same voter cannot vote both in the online election and the offline election. Once the voter has voted in the online election, it should be marked as voted in the voter list at the respective booths so that that person is not able to vote again. Once the elections are upgraded to completely digital elections, this different window of voting would also not be necessary.
Why is pre-registration a bad idea?
Pre-registration is a bad idea because:
- Election Commissions have to run a separate media campaign to make voters aware that pre-registration is required.
- Even after spending crores on such a media campaign, the election commissions have failed to educate the voters about the late date of registration and the process of registration.
- Pre-registration process of both GSEC and BSEC is much more tedious than the offline voting process. In the case of GSEC, it required physical presence in front of the registering authority, which defeats the purpose of online voting. This eliminates the migrant workers, students, etc, from pre-registering.
- Voters are not motivated enough to go through a tedious registration process. If online banking required pre-registration months before each transaction, nobody would have used online banking.
Will the online voting initiative in the Bihar election succeed?
Yes, this initiative will win awards like the Gujarat initiative. But will it lead to higher voter turnout, or will it enable the voters who are not able to vote – The answer is No!
Only a few thousand voters will end up voting via online voting in the Bihar elections. It will become a good showcase to win an award, but it would be a bad showcase to judge online voting. Both GSEC and BSEC examples would be cited as examples of why online voting does not lead to an increase in voter turnout and leads to a waste of money.
Correct way to introduce online voting?
Here are the steps for the correct way to introduce online voting:
- Link the voter list with the Aadhaar database
- Eliminate the requirement of pre-registration
- Make the election 100% digital. Even the voters who come to the booth and vote should vote on the integrated digital system rather than offline EVM machines. This will ensure no voter can vote in both the online voting and the offline voting process. If the SEC wants to take baby steps, then keep a separate window for online voting and offline voting, or introduce digital marking of voters at each booth.
- Authenticate voters using Aadhaar OTP
- Allow all kinds of voters to vote online and do not restrict it to old people or a select section of the population. Specially focus on voters who are not physically present in the voting district – migrant workers, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), migrant students, etc.
- Introduce features like Voter Selfie and IP address recording to make the election more transparent. If possible, also introduce image verification with the help of the Aadhaar database.
The correct technology partner – Right2Vote
State election commissions should partner with the correct technology partners for such initiatives. Right2Vote is an Indian online voting platform which has been providing online voting technology for various elections for the last 10 years. Right2Vote manages more than 3000 elections every year in India. They have been tested and certified by STQC, Government of India, 3 times in the last 10 years. Right2Vote has technology to manage more than 600 different kinds of elections, including Single Transferable Preference Voting (STPV) used for the President of India elections. Right2Vote understands the Indian environment, Indian voters, the technology ecosystem like Aadhaar, and above all, the local challenges. Right2Vote has already fine-tuned its technology stack based on the Indian environment and Indian challenges. Right2Vote worked with the Maharashtra State Election Commission and fine-tuned their offering to the needs of municipal and panchayat elections.
Election Commissions should avoid importing technology like they did in the case of GSEC or reinvent the wheel like they tried to do for BSEC.
Right focus – EASE OF USE
The election commissions should focus on “EASE OF USE”. Most bureaucrats have a mindset that citizens should do all we ask them to do. They do not appreciate the need to make the process easy for the citizens. Voters will drop out if the process is tedious. The goal of online voting should be to increase voter turnout from the current 66% to more than 90%. That can be achieved only if we make the process of voting as easy as online banking.
Source:
4. https://udd.gujarat.gov.in/pdf/M/Notification/25.10.2011-165.pdf
5. https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/speaker/digital-democracy/GUJARATINDIA.pdf
6. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/few-takers-for-online-voting-in-gujarat-civic-polls-1246386
8. Scrutiny of the Indian attempt to Internet Voting
9. https://youtu.be/otGs9WL3Mwo?si=QErlLQQEcB9Ev-6o
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