Urban & rural constituencies of Bathinda to get special electronic voting machines

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, Janaury 17

Special electronic voting machines — Voter Verification Print Audit Trail (VVPAT) — will be used in two constituencies of Bathinda (Urban) and Bathinda (Rural) during the forthcoming Assembly elections.

With the help of these machines, voters will be able to check whether they have cast their votes correctly or not. All polling booths falling under these two constituencies will have these special machines, where voters will vote normally like they do on other EVMs. After casting a vote, a printing slip will be generated out of the machine.

The slip will show candidate’s serial number and his party symbol. The print will remain in front of the voter for seven seconds, thereafter it would be dropped into a sealed box and maintain the secrecy of the vote.

The VVPAT is a method which provides voters an opportunity to give their feedback. It is a completely independent verification system and a printer-like machine is attached with every EVM.

The Election Commission of India has been planning to introduce the VVPAT system since 2011 when it started exploring the possibility of conducting first field trials. Although the system was first experimented during the Nagaland by-elections in 2013 and Mizoram was the first state in which the VVPAT system was introduced on a large scale. It was used in 10 Assembly constituencies of Aizawl district. The system was introduced in eight of 543 parliamentary constituencies — 516 polling stations across eight states — during the 2014 General elections.

Bathinda (Urban) Returning Officer Sakshi Sawhney, who is also Bathinda SDM, said, “We are using special electronic voting machines in all booths of the city. Polling staff have been trained for the use of the machines.”