The Hindu : Kerala News : ECI ready to give EVMs for local body polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

ECI ready to give EVMs for local body polls

T. Ramavarman

States should provide 25 p.c. machines as buffer

MULANKUNNATHUKAVU (THRISSUR): The Election Commission of India (ECI) is ready to provide electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the voters' list prepared by the Commission to all States for conducting local body elections, the Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswamy told The Hindu at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) here on Tuesday.

Mr. Gopalaswamy was at KILA, one of the premier capacity building centres in the country in decentralised governance, to inaugurate a workshop on `Electoral reforms in local governments.'

Mr. Gopalaswamy said the Commission was initially reluctant to give EVMs to the States for conducting local body elections. This was because of the apprehension that in the absence of adequate stock of machines, there would be complications if the available ones were held up in legal entanglements arising out of possible election petitions. ``Now we have adequate machines in each State for meeting their respective requirements. Also, we have asked the States to use EVMs for local body elections to provide 25 per cent machines as buffer stock in three years' period to meet any eventuality,'' he said.

The Election Commissioner said the memory of the existing EVMs would be sufficient only for two votes, and if the voters had to cast more than two votes, as in the case of elections to the three-tier local bodies, the memory of the machines would have to be changed. Some States such as Maharashtra were using EVMs for local body polls by changing the memory chips and by staggering the polls instead of making it a one-day affair as was being done in Kerala. The Election Commissioner said it was prepared to permit the States to use the voters' list prepared by it for conducting local body elections. However, the voters themselves must ensure that their names were included in the list.

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