Rajiv Kumar emphasizes the need for a totaliser system to protect voting confidentiality and calls for remote voting for NRIs
Outgoing Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar has urged the implementation of a totaliser system to safeguard polling station-wise voting confidentiality and emphasized the need for NRIs to vote remotely. Speaking at his farewell address before retiring at 65, he also stressed the importance of political consensus on remote voting for migrant voters, reported economictimes.indiatimes.com.
Kumar highlighted the necessity of biometric authentication at polling booths to combat voter impersonation. He also called for mandatory online reporting of political party expenditures to improve financial transparency and analytics. Additionally, he urged courts to expedite decisions on financial disclosures related to political promises.
Kumar advocates biometric authentication, financial transparency, and regulation of social media algorithms to strengthen the electoral process
He raised concerns over unregulated social media algorithms influencing elections worldwide, calling for urgent regulatory measures. Election management bodies, he said, must develop mechanisms to counter misinformation and strategically timed attacks on electoral outcomes.
Currently, votes are counted separately for each polling station, revealing the areas where candidates receive support. Kumar pointed out that this can lead to post-election violence, victimization, and exclusion of opposition supporters from developmental initiatives. To address this, he proposed using the totaliser system, already developed by the Election Commission, to ensure that polling station-wise vote counts remain undisclosed.
He called for political consensus and pilot testing of the totaliser system to enhance voter secrecy and protect the electoral process’s integrity.
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