Democracy Goes Digital: Bihar Empowers Voters with First-Ever Mobile Polls

Bihar would be the first Indian state to make use of mobile phone-based e-voting, a revolutionary mechanism in the country's election process. The new system would be applied to the forthcoming June 28, 2025, municipal election for six municipal councils of Patna, Rohtas, and East Champaran districts.

 

Key Highlights

Who can Vote using Mobile:

The mobile polling station is available for those who cannot physically access polling stations, such as elderly persons, differently abled persons, pregnant women, and migrant voters.

 

How to Vote:

The voter can download the "e-Voting SECBHR" app (developed by Bihar State Election Commission and C-DAC) and link it to the mobile number registered in the electoral roll. The app is already available for Android.

 

Security Features:

The platform implements robust digital security in the form of face matching, liveness detection, real-time scanning, and blockchain technology to render the voting process tamper-proof. Two verified voters only can vote on a single phone number, and votes are all verified against individual voter IDs.

 

Audit Trail:

A paper trail of audit, such as the VVPAT system employed with EVMs, has been incorporated to provide transparency and auditability of every vote.

 

Alternative Voting:

Voters who do not use smartphones may cast their votes online from the State Election Commission website.

 

Awareness Campaign:

There was a voter education campaign from June 10 to 22 to acquaint the citizenry with the new e-voting system.

 

Participation:

To date, almost 10,000 voters have registered to vote via their mobile phones, while still another estimated 50,000 vote online without ever stepping foot in a polling station.

 

Implication:

Significance: This action is certain to increase the voting turnout, particularly of the marginalized and floating voters, and establish a precedent for electoral reform in India. What's Next? Whereas this experiment currently remains limited to the municipal polls, this success would pave the way for extension to future state and national elections. The Election Commission has not yet made up its mind, though, on whether mobile voting would be carried out in the Assembly polls. 

 

Source: Business Standard, NDTV, Akashvani News, News18, VisionIAS