IIT Delhi holds polls using indigenous voting system

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, on Monday announced the successful conduct of its co-curricular and academic interaction council (CAIC) elections using an indigenously developed dual voting platform that combines traditional paper ballots with electronic recording.

Elections were held on April 25 and 29, with 2,000 votes cast.

“Developed and tested at IIT Delhi, the system ensured a smooth, transparent and tamper-proof electoral process. No discrepancy was recorded across electronic and paper ballots, validating the robustness and reliability of the newly developed platform,” the institute said in a statement.

The system, named OpenVoting, was conceptualised and designed by a team including Prof Subodh Sharma, Dr Prashant Agrawal and Prof Subhashis Banerjee, with engineering led by Prof Sharma and support from Electrical Engineering undergraduates Raaginee and Umang.

“The e-voting platform, OpenVoting, introduces a first-of-its-kind dual voting system in India, combining the cryptographic security of end-to-end verifiable electronic voting with the reliability of voter-verified paper records (VVPRs). Each electronic vote is cryptographically coupled with its corresponding paper ballot, ensuring that any attempt at tampering, whether electronic or physical, is immediately detectable,” the institute said.

This integration safeguards against attacks on either medium and secures both tracks of the election process. Starting from a verified electoral roll, OpenVoting prevents vote stuffing, unauthorised deletion and manipulation. Every vote is verifiable, any discrepancy is traceable to specific polling booths and voter anonymity remains intact, eliminating the need for full re-elections in case of error, institute sources said.

Prof Subodh Sharma of the Computer Science and Engineering Department said, “OpenVoting has demonstrated strong verifiability in a real-world election, although at a modest scale. We are now examining how the platform can be scaled for larger public election scenarios within India, aligned with our broader goal of supporting trustworthy digital election infrastructure.”

Delhi