Integrated Election Voting System: A Model for Leveraging ICT in the Indian Election Scenario Gurpreet Singh Matharu Amity University Uttar Pradesh Noida, India mtech.gurpreet@gmail.com Anju Mishra Amity University Uttar Pradesh Noida, India amishra1@amity.edu Lalita Chaudhary Amity University Uttar Pradesh Noida, India lalita.chaudhary19@gmail.com ABSTRACT In India, Information and Communication technologies (ICT) are being increasingly deployed in almost each sector of economy including agriculture, health, transportation, and education. But when we analyze the Indian Election Voting Scenario, it is realized that the ICT has not been exploited to its fullest extent. Recently, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has introduced few ICT-enabled initiatives, but the application of advanced ICT technologies needs to be promoted in Indian Election Voting System. In this paper, we propose E-Voting System to provide for an additional channel of voting to the Indian electorate. Further, this paper proposes the deployment model “Integrated Election Voting System” that leverages ICT technologies to integrate the existing Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) System with the proposed E-Voting System to provide a solution to the problem of low voting percentages among the Indian electorate. In addition, this paper includes results of simulations carried out to evaluate the E-Voting System. Also, the paper elaborates on the components of the proposed model, besides discussing the challenges faced by E-Voting Systems and the advantages offered by the proposed model. Keywords ICT, E-Voting System, Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) System, Integrated Election Voting System, Web Portal 1. INTRODUCTION India being the world’s largest democracy, holding free and fair elections here has always been a herculean task. The Election Commission of India has been discharging its constitutional duties very well. In India, the Information and Communication technologies (ICT) are being leveraged in all the sectors be it health or education or transportation. Although, a slew of e- initiatives have been rolled out by the Election Commission of India to modernize the Indian Election System, but the maximum potential of ICT is yet to be exploited to accrue its benefits. In India, the Information and Communication technologies (ICT) are being leveraged in all the sectors be it health or education or transportation. But when we turn around and see towards the current scenario of Indian Election Voting, we discover that a slew of e-initiatives have been rolled out by the Election Commission of India to improve the way in which polling is conducted during the Indian Elections. But the maximum potential of ICT is yet to be exploited to accrue its benefits. After studying the statistics related to electorate turnout percentages in the Indian Elections being held since Independence, it has been found out that the voting percentages has fluctuated just between 55% and 65% for the combined total of male and female voters. For male voters, it has remained between 60% and 70% whereas for female voters, it has remained between 50% and 60%. No rocket science is required to understand that these voter turnout percentages are exceptionally low and are not signs of a healthy and vibrant democracy [1]. Another well-established fact is that the people belonging to influential class and much percentage of upper middle class often lag behind in casting their valuable ballot whereas the rural electorate demonstrates higher voting percentages in the elections. Hence, we need to focus on boosting voting percentages among people from influential and upper middle class. As a very high percentage of people from upper middle class and influential class have access to the Internet and many are equipping themselves with latest smart phones out in the market, we can leverage the ICT technologies to boost the voting percentages among them. Figure 1. Male, Female and Total Voter Percentage in Indian General Elections [1] In this paper, we propose an E-Voting System to provide a way to the people who have got internet access to be able to cast their votes at the ease of their homes or while on-the-go. Also, we have proposed an “Integrated Election Voting System” which integrates the already existing EVM Voting System with the Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions@acm.org . ICTCS '14, November 14 - 16 2014, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India Copyright 2014 ACM 978-1-4503-3216-3/14/11…$15.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2677855.2677944