Parliamentary Elections: First-Level Checks of 40,000 EVMs And VVPATs Over

GUWAHATI: With the three-phased Parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in the State in April, the Election Department, Assam is making all arrangements including completion of the first-level checks of the EVMs and VVPATs.

The Parliamentary elections will be held in the State on April 11, 18 & 23 in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies.

A source of the Election Department told The Sentinel that that nearly 40,000 EVMs and VVPATs are in the custody of the district's administration across the State.

Once the number of candidates contesting the polls is finalized, the miniature ballot papers containing the candidates’ names, photos and symbols would be pasted on the EVMs. Once the miniature ballot papers are pasted on the EVMs, the second level random checking of 5 percent of the total EVMs would be conducted. The entire exercise including simultaneous “commissioning” of the EVMS and VVPATs, would be done under the directive of the Election Commission of India (ECI). Poll-related officials would carry out the checking in the presence of EVM and VVPAT engineers and representatives of the different political parties. The VVPATs are being introduced in all the polling stations of the State for the first time. In the last 2016 Assembly elections, VVPATs were used in polling stations of 10 Legislative Assembly Constituencies (LAC).

There are 28,143 polling stations in 126 LACs across 14 Parliamentary constituencies in Assam this time.

The Election Department source further informed that 126 VVPATs of each of the 126 LACs would be selected through lottery and their slips would be counted on the day of votes counting, i.e., on May 23. During that time, the polling officials would tally the VVPAT slips with the EVM results. This will be done to bring about transparency in the EVM system of voting as there were allegations of manipulation of such machines in the past.

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