Electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been at the heart of modernizing voting processes worldwide, including in the US and India. However, their journey has been fraught with issues that highlight both the promise and pitfalls of digital voting. The US, once heavily dependent on EVMs, has pulled back significantly in recent years, largely due to security and transparency concerns. This shift provides an interesting comparison to India’s continued reliance on EVMs, even as the country incorporates additional checks such as Voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPAT) to strengthen confidence in the system.

USA’s love-hate relationship with EVMs

The history of voting machines in the United States spans over a century, with early mechanical voting machines (lever systems) introduced in the late 1800s and dominating much of the 20th century. Later came punched card systems, which became infamous after the “Chad hanging” debacle in the 2000 Florida election, where officials had to painstakingly count votes by hand for weeks. In the wake of that crisis, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002, pushing states to replace outdated voting systems with modern, computerized Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines, believing they would improve accessibility and accuracy.

However, these touchscreen DRE machines introduced new problems. By 2016, revelations about foreign hacking attempts on voter databases and research highlighting vulnerabilities in DRE software underscored the need for better security and transparency. A major turning point came with the 2020 presidential election and subsequent unsubstantiated allegations of fraud, which amplified public distrust of purely electronic voting systems. Today, about 95% of American voters use paper-track systems to cast their ballots, typically through optical scanners that read paper ballots and allow for auditability, while only a small fraction of jurisdictions still use EVMs paperless.

Adding paper trails

In both the US and India, ensuring the integrity of votes has become central to the discussion of EVMs. While India has been slower to adopt VVPAT, having first been tested in the 2014 general election, the feature now plays a role similar to the hybrid systems the US has embraced, allowing for verification and recounts if discrepancies occur. VVPAT, which prints a paper record of every vote that voters can see, was introduced by the Election Commission of India to build trust and create a tangible trail for audit purposes.
The US, in contrast, relies more on optical scanners, which directly scan paper ballots filled out by voters, leaving a clear physical record from the start. This trend gained momentum as DRE vulnerabilities were exposed; touch screens without paper verification have been phased out in much of the country. States like Virginia and Pennsylvania, for example, moved away from pure DRE after experiencing problems with broken cars and their breakdowns.

Different paths, common concerns

While the US and India have approached voting technology differently, the challenges they face — such as security, transparency and logistical concerns — are strikingly similar. In the US, aging EVM infrastructure remains a problem, with hundreds of polling districts still using machines from over a decade ago, creating risks related to malfunctions, parts shortages and security flaws. These problems are mitigated somewhat by the hybrid model (optical scanning with paper ballots), which ensures that even if a machine malfunctions, votes can still be counted manually.
In India, EVMs have faced skepticism from opposition parties, with doubts raised about potential manipulation and the lack of a physical vote count. While the introduction of VVPAT has helped address some of these concerns, experts say the level of transparency in Indian elections could benefit from further measures. The presence of VVPATs helps create an auditable trail, but questions remain about the random sampling method used in verifying these paper trails.

As technology advances, both countries continue to refine their approaches to electronic voting, adapting to meet the demands of secure, reliable and transparent elections. However, the US experience offers a lesson about the importance of hybrid systems, especially when voter confidence is paramount in protecting democracy.