Internet voting not a practicable idea: former CEC Qureshi

Voting through the Internet is not a feasible idea because of security concerns, former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi said here today.
"Although we are an Internet superpower, we are not looking at Internet voting because we are concerned about the voters' security," Qureshi said here.
'An undocumented wonder- The making of the great Indian election', a book penned by Qureshi, was launched here today.
"When I say security, I mean if somebody comes to your house and puts a gun to your head and asks you to vote for him, we cannot give protection to you," he said.

"Even our basic EVM which is a 17th century basic calculator is at times questioned...It can be manipulated, can be hacked," Qureshi said.
To a question about the large number of complaints of names missing from voter lists, Qureshi said the deletion happens because of several reasons, including a voter enrolling his or her name at two places.

"Is deletion a dirty word? No...Because if people are dead, should we not delete them or if they have shifted and enrolled somewhere else, then should we not delete them (their names). Deletion is a part of clean-up of electoral roll," he said.

On the demand by political parties to ban opinion polls, he said it was for the government to bring an amendment for the same but "every research is a good thing".
"Unless we know what people think, how will we improve? Even the Election Commission does its opinion poll," he said.