The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : New EVMs to be used in city

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 10, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

New EVMs to be used in city

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: It now turns out that the Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy district election authorities would be using the brand new Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) belonging to the State Election Commission (SEC) and not EVMs from Narsaraopet in Guntur district as was being planned earlier.

Reluctant

Officials informed on Thursday that the Election Commission was not inclined to allow using EVMs being used for the second phase polls (April 23rd) to be utilised for first phase (April 16th ) to avoid any kind of apprehensions from various quarters.

Election authorities were getting ready to send vehicles to Guntur to procure the EVMs when the message came from the EC.

The earlier argument put forth was that it was alright to make use of the balloting units of EVMs being used for second phase poll and return them as it was the control unit of the EVM which stores all the key information – votes polled.

Permission sought

Since more than 4,000 EVMs were necessary, EC’s permission was sought to make use of the 15,000 brand new EVMs of the SEC. These EVMs are to be used in Secunderabad and Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituencies and also in Assembly segments of Musheerabad, Nampally, Goshamahal and Secunderabad where there are 16 candidates in fray.

Usage

The usage of SEC EVMs was also explained to representatives of various political parties at a meeting on Thursday where officials also pointed out that except for more display features, the machines were not different from the other ones.

In these new ones, serial numbers are also in Braille script to enable visually-challenged to cast their votes without any assistance. The same script sticker is to be attached to the old EVMs.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh