All the future elections will now be held with voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines as the Election Commission has got the funds for the purpose. “India will become first country to hold elections completely with paper trail machines,” said the EC official, adding two Government public sector units will manufacture the machines.
For the forthcoming Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the official said, the EC has over 50,000 VVPATs machines, which are enough to conduct both the elections.
In paper trail machines, a voter could see their vote being cast to candidate they pressed the button for.
The EC will also hold an all-party meeting on May 12 to discuss the concerns about the reliability of electronic voting machines and is likely to brief the parties about its planned EVM hacking challenge. Seven national parties and 48 State parties have been invited for the meeting.
The official said efforts will be made to convince political parties
that EVMs are reliable and tamper-proof.
Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh will go to Assembly elections by the year end. Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan and Tripura will hold polls next year.
In its communication sent to the President of all seven national and 48 State-level political parties, the Commission has also forwarded Status Paper on Electronic Voting Machine/VVPAT.
In addition to the EVM/VVPAT, the sources said that the agenda of meeting will also include Making bribery in Elections a Cognisable offence, disqualification on framing of charges for the offences of bribery in elections, and suggestions in VVPAT recount Rules. The ECI has sought written response from all the parties on the issues by May 7.
The EC will also decide a date for the proposed EVM hacking challenge. Several Opposition parties raised concerns over the efficiency of the EVMs following the recent Assembly elections in five States and demanded the Commission revert to paper ballots.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati was the first to raise the EVM issue, alleging that large-scale tampering with EVMs in the Uttar Pradesh elections leading to the BJP’s massive victory.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress had echoed similar allegations. The row over EVMs was back in the headlines after allegations in Madhya Pradesh’s Ater, ahead of a bypoll in April, that a device registered votes only for the saffron party during a media demonstration. The allegations have been vehemently denied by the Commission.
CEC, his deputy appointed South Korea Prez election observer Chief Election Commissioner SNA Zaidi and Deputy Election Commissioner Vijay Dev will be international observers for the 19th South Korea Presidential election, on May 9. The United Nation has appointed Zaidi and Dev as international observer for South Korea presidential elections.