On the eve of the first Indian election run with electronic-voting machines, a technologist called "smz" has posted an in-depth comparison between Diebold's voting machines and the ones in use in India.
The System is a set of two devices running on 6V batteries. One device, the Voting Unit is used by the Voter, and another device called the Control Unit is operated by the Electoral Officer. Both units are connected by a 5 meter cable. The Voting unit has a Blue Button for every candidate, the unit can hold 16 candidates, but up to 4 units can be chained, to accommodate 64 candidates. The Control Units has Three buttons on the surface, namely, one button to release a single vote, one button to see the total umber of vote casted till now, and one button to close the election process. The result button is hidden and sealed, It cannot be pressed unless the Close button is already pressed.
The voting unit has a list of candidate's names and their Party Symbols pasted on the surface, and a Blue button to cast a vote faces ever candidate's name. The Party Symbols (like a Lotus, an elephant, a horse etc.) are approved by the election commission to be unique, All political parties use these symbols while campaigning, and illiterate people can identify their candidates by looking at his symbol, and pressing the blue button in front of his symbol.
(Thanks, smz!)
