The Election Commission on Monday allayed the apprehensions expressed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal that certain Electronic Voting Machines(EVMs) have been “tampered” to favour BJP in the February 7 Delhi Assembly polls. EC officials met Kejriwal and explained to him about the “factual position”. The EVMs are tamper proof and can not be tampered with.
He was explained that locks of three ‘control units’ and four ‘ballot units’ were broken apparently during transportation and the units were replaced in the presence of general observers. An AAP representative had later signed a document which detailed the facts, EC sources said.
He was told that the faults were basically “mechanical” in nature, they said. The sources said the machines which Kejriwal referred to belong to the post-2006 batch which have “very little” scope of tampering.
“The Election Commission has cleared all our doubts about the EVM machine issue. They said that EVMs used are latest and tamper-proof. They are all double checked,” Kejriwal told reporters after meeting EC officials.
The AAP convener was told that the EVMs and control units pass through several stages of checks before being finally used for actual voting. He was told that just before the actual polling, a mock poll is also carried out where faulty machines are replaced.