In the heat of Lok Sabha elections,while candidates are using technology to reach the young and techno savvy voters,the generation next too is not far behind in their contribution to the election process. A group of students of Sinhgad Academy of Engineering has developed an advanced version of electronic voting machine (EVM) as a part of their third year project. The peculiarity of this EVM is an embedded global positioning system (GPS) that will help the election commission track the machines in case of any malpractice. It can also trace the route through which the EVM is taken to the polling booth ensuring more security. Ruchi Jindal,Avinash Agarwal,Shubhang Tripathi,Akash Gera and Anuj Singh have created this EVM. The GPS ensures security during transportations of machines and monitoring can be done using simple software. The person who is monitoring can trace the location of the machine after every nine seconds. This feature is not present in the present EVM, claimed the students. A special feature of our design is a freeze switch that freezes the machine during booth capturing and simultaneously stores the result in the memory. Data can be stored for as long as ten years and can be retrieved easily. Thus,if someone files a petition in the court regarding the election procedure the data can be retrieved, said Akash. "Our EVM is password protected and hence cannot be used by unauthorised personnel. Viewing of result is also password protected thus restricting any manipulations be done by any means, said Shubhang. In the present EVM only 3840 voters can vote whereas this EVM has more capacity as it can store 70,000 votes. Moreover,a maximum number of 64 candidates can be voted. The present EVMs have capacity of 16. The students claim that even with the added features,the EVM could be made in low cost and it is user-friendly too. The students have won a special prize for the most innovative project at the recently held state level competition PROJECX-09. The design is also awarded a letter of appreciation by P W Wani,dean of engineering stream,University of Pune. Our students worked hard and did not leave any stone unturned to achieve their goal, said Prof S S Khot,who guided the students.
