Samizdat

India's First All Electronic Election

Sav Khetan points me to this BBC News article here that talks about India's upcoming general election that will be held in four rounds over a three-week period starting on 20 April.

What's fascinating is the fact that one million Electronic Voting Machines will be put to use in the country to serve the needs of an electorate that's more than 668 million people. Of course, people are wary, and the article adds this interesting detail:

"He [NN Simha, general manager of the government-run Bharat Electronics Limited] rejected criticism that rural voters, used to balloting with a thumb impression, were not comfortable with hi-tech gadgets.

"It is easy to operate, even by the illiterate," says Mr Simha."

Of course, all of this while the US is still struggling to get it's EVM system up and running. All I know is that India will not have a Florida Chad incident... not now, not ever! And for a simple reason, India might not do things first, but they sure do things right.