This time, the electronic voting machines used in the UML general convention were no less famous than any candidate. There was a lot of discussion on social media and the media about how these machines, built by the Ram-Lakshman group, are used, how long they take, and what the process is. Although the voting itself took 20 hours due to the large number of candidates and procedural ambiguity, it did not take long for the votes to be counted and the winner to be announced.

Along with electronic voting, the use of technology in candidate registration, levy collection, etc., and initiatives like drones and TikTok booths, participants experienced that the UML general convention seemed 'technological'. Along with this, the party was criticized for promoting misleading videos with AI-generated images and context-altering content to show an artificial crowd. 

UML's recent efforts to use electronic systems in Nepal's electoral process to appear faster have been commendable. However, long before this, the Election Commission itself had successfully tested electronic voting in general elections. In the first Constituent Assembly election held in Chaitra 2064 BS, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were used as a test among about 50,000 voters in Kathmandu-1. Stating that the experiment was successful, the commission also adopted electronic technology in by-elections held in Morang, Rolpa, Dhanusha, Kaski and Kanchanpur. 

The commission had already started the process to purchase about 21,000 electronic voting control units in the last elections, with the conclusion that about 1,000 EVMs received with the help of the Indian government were effective. However, it was canceled at the last minute, saying that the voters were not ready. Although the issue of making them electronic and technology-friendly was raised in the elections since then, the voting and other processes are based on paper and lapt. This has led to a long time in the voting and counting process in places with a large number of voters. 

Prem Maharjan (56), the operator of M Store in New Baneshwor, who has experience of voting through electronic voting machines, says that it is much easier to press the button than to stamp on paper and cast a vote. ‘There is a fear that the ink will get dirty when you stamp,’ he says, ‘If you see the election symbol on the voting machine, press the button, it is easy. The results also come out quickly. .’

He said that when you have to stamp again in the elections since then, it was like going back to the old era. While Maharjan was praising the EVMs, his son Praveen said that he did not like the obligation to reach the polling station and cast his vote. “I was tired of standing in line,” he said, who voted for the first time in the 2079 general election. “If there was an online system, there would have been no need to wait in line for so long.” 

There has been no special initiative in our country regarding facilities like online or internet voting, candidacy registration, and remote voting, which are widely used in some countries. The demand for Nepalis living abroad to be able to vote, which was widely discussed after the Gen-G movement, is also pending due to policy, practical, and technological challenges.

Although this year's voter list update has been made available online, in some cases it became inconvenient due to the limitation of having to be present in person to provide biometrics or verify. Commissioner Janaki Kumari Tuladhar said that the commission has been taking the lead in using technology according to the time and context. ‘This time, we found the voter registration process easier due to the integration between the commission and the national identity card system,’ she said, ‘The hassle of having to go to the office like before has been eliminated.’ 

After the system integration, there was a problem of data duplication, that is, names appearing twice in the voter list after re-registration through the NID (national identity card) even though they were already in the roll, and now the information technology wing of the commission is removing them one by one (manually). ‘In the future, when the commission has complete data received through the NID, the problem of duplicate data will go away,’ said Commissioner Tuladhar.  

Yogesh Aryal, Senior Computer Officer of the commission, informed that the commission is preparing for institutional and technical resource and human resource management while adopting new technologies. He said that discussions are being held on social media monitoring to address the challenge of spreading false information in the election. As in the previous elections, the polling stations are being monitored by GPS and election materials will be tracked, says Suresh Basaula, a computer engineer. “You can see the live count of the votes and the result app is used for that,” he said. “A provision has been made for voters to see where their polling station is through the Nagarik app.” 

EVMs  are widely used in Indian elections. There are about one billion voters in India. Millions of electronic voting devices, control units, and a verification method called VVPAT are used in Indian elections in various phases. The Election Commission of India has estimated that Rs 150 billion will be spent on this technology every 15 years. 

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly raised questions and raised concerns about the problems and weaknesses in India’s election technology. However, these battery-operated and network-free machines have made the Indian elections, which have millions of voters, technically capable of producing results within a few hours. Similarly, the use of technology in many aspects of the reporting of results and the electoral process in Indian elections has been increasing, and the contribution of domestic IT companies in this can be seen significantly.

The major technological change in the history of elections was the 'secret ballot system' that started in Australia in 1856 and was later adopted by democracies around the world, writes the outgoing Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Thapaliya in his groundbreaking book. 'From 1850 to 1910, printed media, newspapers, public meetings and speeches were used as the main technologies for election propaganda,' he writes, 'From 1910 to 1980, elections were considered a public responsibility of the state and Election Commissions were formed. Efficient administrative mechanisms began to be used in voting and counting. Radio, television, posters and pamphlets became the main medium for propaganda. During this period, mechanization entered election management. However, it was not completely computer-based.'

Recalling the first use of computers in Nepal in the 2048 parliamentary election, former Chief Election Commissioner Neelkanth Upreti says that Nepal was ahead of India in the field of elections at one time. At that time, the voter list was prepared using computers for the first time. Upreti recalled that during the election preparations, King Birendra came to the commission to see how computers worked and that he made a ‘presentation’ in front of him. ‘Even though computers were big at that time, their capacity was very low,’ he says, ‘it was very difficult to store and secure data.’ 

According to Upreti, before the use of computers, the voter list was prepared using a manual technique called lithography. Handwritten names were printed directly on paper with ink by pressing one letter at a time using a Remington typewriter. If there was a mistake, there was no ‘delete’ button, and one had to type from the beginning again. The typed letters were then used as a ‘master copy’ and then the copy was placed in a lithograph or stencil machine and rotated by hand to prepare a copy.

After 2011, the commission also increased its use of technology in the compilation of vote results. The Chief Electoral Officer from the district would sign the vote counting record and send it via fax. The commission would enter the data into the computer and the processed reporting would be sent every hour/two hours through terminals kept for Nepal Television, the Durbar, the Prime Minister’s Office and the National News Committee. ‘Collecting, processing and live reporting in this way was the biggest and most challenging task of the time,’ says Upreti. ‘Around 2011/2012, the Election Commissioner of India, after visiting Nepal and seeing the computer experiments being carried out by the commission, returned to India and gave an interview and said, ‘Nepal is leading.’ 

However, India started using electronic voting machines instead of ballot papers in the 1980s. Even though India had built the machines locally, Nepal could not go in that direction, Upreti says. ‘Later, the commission had taken some EVMs from India as assistance and used them in some areas,’ he says, ‘However, Nepal’s electoral system has many candidates and parties on the proportional side. The Indian machines, which could only vote for up to 16 candidates, could not work. When there were many candidates, more machines had to be added and the machines were large, so the use of EVMs was stopped because it was difficult to manage.’

Outgoing Chief Commissioner Thapaliya has experience that election management bodies are gradually increasing the use of technology in activities such as candidate registration, election expenditure regulation, election education, security management, information flow, etc. He said that after 2010, work such as biometric systems, online registration, electronic voting, digital tracking and real-time broadcasting of vote results were started. “While the 2024 US election is establishing digital technology as a powerful source of power, the future of global democracy could face a difficult test if appropriate regulation is not put in place to overcome the challenges posed by the struggle between truth and illusion,” he says. 

In other major democracies around the world, ballot-based electoral systems have significantly increased the options for voters and the use of technology in them. Although the responsibility for determining the electoral process in the US is mainly given to the state government, most states have a system for voting before polling day called ‘early voting’, postal voting, and absentee voting. Although voting in the US seems traditional, various technologies and software are used to streamline management, from collecting, updating, and counting voter lists. 

In some states in the US, there is a system for voting on the same day as registering on the voter list. There is also a significant expenditure on the use of technology, from campaigning, voter education, election debates, to polls and announcement of results. Despite the large number of voters, the US has been making the counting process faster through ballot scanning technology. 

In Japan, there is also an old-fashioned option where voters write the names of candidates by hand and cast their votes. However, technology is used extensively in various tasks such as voter identification and counting. Japan has been adopting new technology and investigative methods in everything from voter registration to the announcement of results. In Germany, the most developed country in Europe, the situation is exactly the opposite. After a court there in 2009 ordered that the process should be easy to understand even for voters with very basic understanding, Germany has been doing everything from voting to counting 'manually'. Another European country, the UK, also has an almost 'manual' election process. Even though they use technology for tasks such as voter registration and results, they still do voting and counting 'manually'. 

Along with India, countries such as Brazil, Bhutan, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela have been conducting electronic voting through machines. Ethiopia is the only country where voting is completely online using a national ballot. France has made it possible for citizens living abroad to vote online, and Canada has offered the option of voting in municipal elections online. Switzerland and Australia have offered limited online voting to citizens. Countries like Mexico, South Korea, and Indonesia use ballots, but use technology for counting and results. 

The use of technology in elections is not limited to voting and voter registration or election results. With the rise of new and cheap technologies for election debate, propaganda, and voter influence, analysts believe that elections will now be held based on ‘digital narratives’. Even developed countries are struggling to prevent the use of social media in elections and the use of false and misleading information on digital platforms to influence voters. The easy availability of artificial intelligence (AI) has made technology regulation more complex.

A former officer who recently retired from the Election Commission, who closely observed the elections in Nepal over the past few years, says, “The Commission has significantly improved the process of organizing the election campaign by attending in person and the manual voting and counting that we have been practicing, but the Election Commission still has a lot to do regarding the need for the use of digital technology and the impact that the use of technology can have on elections in countries like ours where internet literacy is low.” 

According to senior advocate Satish Krishna Kharel, there is no legal difficulty in using technology in elections. He pointed out that it is possible to implement it even by issuing a guideline. “However, we have practical difficulties,” he said, “The main problem is related to technical difficulties and reliability. A technically reliable system had to be created. Although EVMs have been used in India for a long time, questions about this continue to arise there. In a country like Nepal, one should only move forward with a little thought when using technology.” 

Senior advocate Kharel believes that Nepal has not made much progress in the use of election technology. ‘When I voted for the first time in 2031, there was a system where ballots had to be cast in the ballot boxes with the names of the candidates,’ he says, ‘then came the system of stamping the election symbol. The biggest improvement now is the integration of the commission and the national identity card.’ He also said that attention should be paid to incidents of misuse of technology. 

The outgoing commissioner Thapaliya says that in 2077, the commission took the initiative to reduce the misuse of technology by formulating a ‘Policy on the Use of Social Media in Election Management’ for the first time. He also mentioned that false and misleading information and hate speech have been clearly defined and included in the legal document. In the 2079 election, the commission had coordinated with Meta and TikTok and made efforts to make the code of conduct, advertising control and information management effective by signing an agreement. It was after that that Facebook included Nepal in its ad library and started providing details on political, social and election-related advertisements from here, as well as the expenses incurred on them.