The Election Commission (EC) is likely to remove the cancel (red button) and confirm (green button) buttons from the electronic voting machine (EVM) system to speed up the voting process. It is said that this decision has been made in line of voting process on the ballot paper. However, the implementation of the decision is still under process.
In this regard, Election Commissioner Brigadier General (Retd.) Md. Ahsan Habib Khan told the media, “I have looked into the issues of time consumption to vote in EVMs in many places. Considering overall aspect, we are thinking of removing two buttons from EVM. One of the two buttons is the Cancel button. Usually if one mistakenly voted for another candidate, there was a ‘Cancel’ option (red button) to correct it. Another button omitted is the ‘Confirm’ button (green button). This confirm button was used for confirmation when voting is done. We now want to remove these two buttons.
Another election commissioner Md. Alamgir highlighted the reasoning behind this decision. He explained, “If someone stamps the symbol of another candidate on the ballot paper, there is no option of correction. But EVMs have it. Eventually, it takes a lot of time. So, we are thinking of canceling the ‘Confirm’ button.”
According to EC sources, if somebody votes on a wrong place that needs to be canceled or annulled. In that case the red button or cancel button is used. This button is mostly used in local government elections. In local elections voters have to vote for many posts of Mayor/Chairman, Councilor and Reserved Councilor. In this case, the voter only votes for the post of his/her preferred candidate and presses the cancel button or the red button for the other two posts. But following this method it takes time to vote in many places. There are long queues. EC came under criticism for this. Two buttons are in the process being removed from that consideration.
If a voter mistakenly votes for another candidate, there is an opportunity to correct it in the current system. After voting for the preferred candidate, another button or buttons have to be pressed to confirm.