The Telangana government on Wednesday announced it was ready to initiate the dry run of the country’s first smartphone-based e-voting system with a dummy election in the Khammam district. Voters can register themselves on the smartphone-based application between October 8 and 18, and the dummy voting is to be held on October 20. The dry run is open for all citizens of the district.

Telangana State Election Commission (TSEC) implements the system with the support of the emerging technologies wing of IT Electronics and Communications (ITE&C) department of the state government and the technical development by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC).

The technical development has also been guided by an expert committee comprising Professor Rajat Moona, Director of IIT Bhilai and Technical advisor to ECI, and professors from IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi.

“Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain are two of the most versatile emerging technologies that already empower various of our GovTech projects. We are glad to have supported Telangana State Election Commission in this initiative of building an eVoting solution for our citizens and especially those that may face challenges with physical voting with or without Covid-19 pandemic. The support and confidence of the election commission in such technologies is a testament of India’s growing strength in the field," said Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Government of Telangana.

The initiative originated from the State Election Commission's plan to enable an 'e-voting' facility to certain section of voters such as Persons with Disabilities (PWD), Senior Citizens, citizens employed in notified essential services, sick people, polling personnel and IT Professional, besides others.