A four-member delegation led by President of the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court Justice Dias Toffoli, visited the Election Commission of India here on Wednesday.
The other members of the delegation were Carlos Duarte, Ambassador of Brazil to India, Tarcisio Costa, International Advisor, and Paulo Camarao, Special Advisor in the Supreme Electoral Authority of Brazil.
The delegation met the Chief Election Commissioner, H.S. Brahma and Election Commissioner, Nasim Zaidi.
Brahma, in his welcome remarks, referred to the close relations between India and Brazil, and the leading place enjoyed by Brazil in the electoral management fraternity, particularly in Latin America.
He mentioned that Brazil and India were members of a select group of about six countries which were using electronic voting machines. He also referred to the Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in the field of election management, signed by the two Commissions in 2010 and expressed a desire for further developing the cooperation between the two organizations.
Election Commissioner, Nasim Zaidi, emphasized the need for further strengthening the cooperation under the bilateral MoU. He also stressed the need for further consultation and coordination amongst the few Election Commissions which use Electronic Voting Machines in their elections.
Justice Dias Toffoli was impressed by the National Voters Service Portal developed by Election Commission of India. He also praised the election management skills of the Election Commission of India, which had successfully conducted so many elections in the world's largest democracy.
He gave a brief description of the Brazilian electoral system and expressed interest in ECI's project of seeding bio-metric data of electors in its data base through the Aadhar Card.
A presentation was made to the Brazilian Delegation about this project, followed by another presentation on the subject by V. S. Madan, Director General, UIDAI. ECI made another presentation on campaign funding in India, followed by discussion on funding mechanisms and expenditure control in the two countries during elections.
The Brazilian delegation was also given a hands-on demonstration of Electronic Voting Machine and VVPAT used in Indian Elections.
