Is election voting through SMS possible?

This is about the latest column of India: Today & Tomorrow, titled ‘To make India democratic & politics de-criminalised allow election voting through SMS’ and written by Arindam Chaudhuri. Scratching your head, eh? Well, you can’t imagine my expression, after I went through it once. I sat there laughing out aloud. I was simply wondering how on earth such a man with such an incredible brain located within his head could think along such similar lines as I do! What is more astonishing – this is a topic that I had recently abandoned on grounds that I found my thoughts not to be full proof and practical. But, what beats them all is I find Prof. Chaudhuri having the stomach of letting it out of the bag even when the same loopholes are present in the analysis that troubled me.

A glass of water, please – I’m panting! Let me now point out the common origin of the idea. I, too, similarly as Prof. Chaudhuri writes, struck upon it influenced by the SMS voting process in the numerous talent hunt shows. I felt that it might be used to combat the adulteration of public opinion by “rigging”, use of “muscle power”, etc. Now to the application and applicability. At first, I would like to quote Prof. Chaudhuri’s proposals:
“… it struck me why shouldn’t we make our election process also SMS based. After all no one is allowed to vote without a Voter’s I-Card. All we need to do is to have another line out there where in voter’s can write their mobile numbers. And once that is computerized in a very basic process and fed into an electronic voting system, every Indian can sit at home and cast their votes – and a much larger proportion probably will – and in turn start changing the political landscape in India!! If they send from a different number it will be invalid and so will it be if they send it more than once. Those who don’t have a mobile number can go and vote normally – of course electronically – so that they can’t vote again from their mobiles …”

Same old scribbling, very, very coincidentally! So, I will now jot down the shortcomings that disappointed me:
I. The poorest people in the remotest areas, who cannot yet afford cellular communication, are the worst victims of rigging and exuberance of muscle power. What about them?
II. ID cards should not bear mobile numbers, because they are ever so temporary and the practice can pose a considerable threat to the protection of the secret identity of the voter. Plus, any other person can just grab the mobile of a particular voter and complete the formality, depriving the real voter of his discretion.
III. How can we ensure that a voter may not end up voting multiple times? I mean, he or she might at first vote normally and return to use the mobile or vice versa.

But you know what, I’m so thankful to Prof. Chaudhuri that he wrote about this. After the initial reaction, when I recollected myself, once again I did I explore the possibility, out of sheer belief that something just has to come out of this concept, something fit to be put into practice, just because even a person of Prof. Chaudhuri’s calibre is contemplating it! And this time round, the prospect seems better. Despite the fact that I couldn’t make both ends meet towards the first rat’s gnaw (because it’s totally an economic problem), there has been considerable progress on the technical and strategic side that may almost nullify the other two concerns. What I have to suggest is as follows:
Instead of coining mobile numbers on the Voter’s ID card, we can have two alternatives. Each time the Election Commission updates the voters’ list, new Voters’ ID cards bearing unique registration numbers may be issued with a scratch bar on it, which hides a secret code. What the voter will have to do is to obtain the code, send the code along with the registration number to a particular number in order to receive a password code. Else better still, if the voter can set up his or her own password code and feed it to the database. The second alternative, if issuing new cards at each update is inconvenient, presents before the Election Commission a choice to supply scratch cards a la mobile prepaid cards, which can be used in the same way as stated above. If more than one entry of code for a single registration number is made, it will be rendered invalid. Now, during the election season, all the voter has to do is to type in the registration number, password code and the choice of candidate and send it. Even here, more than one entry will be ignored. And if this service is made free, as Prof. Chaudhuri would like to be done, it will mean that even if you are not a cell holder, you can always use your neighbour’s mobile – vote and then definitely delete the SMS from the outbox – because here the registration number and password stands for your identity, not the mobile number. This puts to sleep the second tear in the net.
As for the last one, it can be taken care of by installing computers in all polling booths, all connected together on a network to a central database server. Each voter who comes along before going to the ballot will have to enter his or her registration number. Then it can be easily detected whether a particular voter is voting for more than once, either through mobile or the traditional way. In this way, we certainly can even do without the embarrassing ink stains on our fingers.

And now it seems to me that it might be possible to apply the same technique with some modification towards a structure for e-voting. It will be all the easier this way. All one would require is an online registered voter profile.
Well, what do you think? Any suggestion is always welcome.