Braille EVMs for visually challenged

Visually challenged voters can hope to exercise their franchise in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls if the Election Commission goes ahead with its plan to use Braille EVMs at some polling booths across the country.  

Designed by the National Institute for Visually Handicapped (NIVH) here, the Braille EVMs were used by 150 visually handicapped people in the 2007 assembly polls in Uttarakhand.  

Chief Election Commissioner-designate Naveen Chawla, who recently visited the NIVH campus here, had assured institute director Anuradha Mohit that the machines will be used at some polling booths in the country.  

"We want that the machines are used in all the places where the blinds are in large numbers.It will be a great gift to the people for whom the world is just black," says Mohit, who herself is blind.

The hallmark of the Braille-EVMs is that blind persons can cast their votes secretly without any difficulty. The names of the candidates along with their symbols are written in Braille on these EVMs.  

"Earlier there was no secrecy. Now they can cast their votes independently," says Mohit.  

Experts said there is still scope for further improvement in the Braille-EVMs.  

"If we install Voice Operated System (VOS) on these EVMs, then illiterate blind persons can also vote," she said.

Quoting a report by National Sample Survey, she said Braille literacy among the blinds is only 22 to 25 percent, and hence there was an urgent need for VOS-EVMs.