Polling parties, including presiding officers and polling officers, were provided training on Saturday on the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) which the election commission is introducing for the first time in Chhattisgarh in the Raipur lok Sabha constituency.
The training was provided at seven schools in Raipur on the direction of the district returning officer, Thakur Ram Singh. In the training camps, officials were provided training on how to operate and manage the machines.
Master-trainers also guided how to connect the VVPAT machines with the electronics voting machines and how to provide the opportunity to the electorate so that they can avail the facility. In the training camps more than 4,000 officers and employees participated. The training camps were organised in two phases in schools including in SS Kalibadi higher secondary schools, JN Pandey government high school, Naldhar chowk, government Hindu high school and government polytechnic Bairan Bazar.
The VVPAT is a paper slip which will come out of the electronic voting machine (EVM) when a voter casts his vote. The slip will show on which symbol and candidate the voter cast his vote. The slip will automatically drop in a sealed box attached to the EVM for use by the election commission. It can only be seen by the concerned voter. He can know that the vote he cast went to the candidate or not.
In case a voter finds the vote he cast did not appear on the slip accurately, the concerned voter will be allowed to cast his vote again. For that the voter needs to submit a declaration to the presiding officer under section 46 D of conduct of election rule, 1961.
Under this Act, there is a provision of punishment and penalty in case a voter’s claim is found to be false. The VVPAT has been developed jointly by the Bharat Electronics limited, Bangalore, and the Hyderabad-based Electronics Corporation of India limited.