AI

Elections are the time when the people of a country are bestowed with the power to choose the next government that will govern their nation. The period leading up to the elections is packed with massive campaigning activities by all political parties. The general techniques used by politicians to achieve this objective are by meeting voters in person, through mass media advertising, public rallies, social media campaigns, etc. This has been the case with political elections throughout modern history. But now with the evolution of AI, the system is changing. 

In recent years, technology has changed the whole approach drastically. Politicians are now relying on technological advancements such as AI and Big Data to connect and engage better with voters. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to engage voters in election campaigns and help them be more informed about important political issues happening in the country. 

AI-Powered Video Analytics

In a first-of-its-kind move, Staqu, AI implementation enabler, has announced that it has joined hands with the Bihar State Election Commission to automate the vote-counting amid the ongoing phases of the Bihar Panchayat Polls. Staqu is currently working with over 50 organizations, including NITI Aayog, the Indian Army, eight police forces in India and the Middle East, and private organizations such as Tata Projects, Larsen & Toubro, Microsoft, Embassy group, Rebel foods, etc.

Staqu will deploy JARVIS, Staqu’s proprietary Video Analytics system powered by advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, to count votes directly from the camera by monitoring the EVM (Electronic Voting Machines) screens at the counting center.

About the System and The Process 

The system is based on its proprietary video analytics solution called JARVIS, which uses OCR and text recognition to identify the candidates and count votes directly from the camera feed by monitoring the EVM screens. After the EVM data is fed into the systems, it is tallied with the data acquired by performing analytics of the footage from the CCTVs to ensure there are no discrepancies.

The data generated from the video analytics solution is hosted on the State Election Commission’s servers where the data going to its website and data generated by Staqu’s solution are matched. If any difference in the number of votes is detected, the commission is alerted immediately. This is the first time that video analytics is being used during vote counting in any election in India. The State Election Commission has also deployed a fingerprint recognition system to verify the identity of the voters.

“Panchayat elections are always huge. Given the number of candidates and the number of panchayats we receive in each election, we felt it best to automate the vote-counting verification process. We are happy to associate with Staqu’s AI-driven JARVIS technology which can assist in the process and ensure that it is error-free and the elections proceed legally. We look forward to ending the elections on a safe and successful note without any miscalculations,” added State election commissioner Shree Deepak Prasad (Rt IAS) for the Bihar State Election Commission.

During the Bihar Panchayat Polls, JARVIS will validate the vote obtained by each of the candidates seen in the EVM machine and can verify with the result on the election commission’s website and alert if there is any difference, which was previously done manually, and avoid any discrepancies or errors through the camera at the counting booth. This is the first time that AI is being deployed for vote counting at elections in the country.

Atul Rai CEO and Co-Founder at Staqu said, “Staqu has been committed to leveraging cutting-edge technologies to solve real-world problems, ensure there is top-notch security, and automate tasks that were previously done manually to save time and cost and avoid any errors or discrepancies.”