The Hindu : National : Now parties to get printouts during mock poll

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 22, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Now parties to get printouts during mock poll

J Balaji

NEW DELHI: As political parties are demanding “paper trail” back up for the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to ensure that the machines are “fool proof and non-tamperable,” the Election Commission has directed the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) to provide printout of the votes polled during EVM demonstration at First Level Checking. This will be followed even in the ensuing Bihar polls and all the by-elections and general elections in future.

“A printout of the results of mock poll as well as a sequential print out of every vote polled during the mock poll shall be taken out for at least 10 per cent of EVMs and shown to the party representatives. Party representatives shall be allowed to pick machines randomly for this purpose,” said Commission's Secretary K.N. Bhar in a letter to CEOs.

Casting of votes against all 16 candidate switches, observation of result and clearing of mock poll data would have to be done for each EVM. In 10 per cent of EVMs at least 1000 votes should be polled during the mock poll. In rest of the machines number of votes polled during the mock poll should be to the satisfaction of the representatives of the political parties. Representatives of political parties should be allowed to do the mock poll themselves.

The letter was also marked to the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), as both of them manufacture and supply EVMs to the Commission and only their authorised engineers are allowed to do FLC. Nobody should be allowed to carry any electronic device inside the hall, where FLC was done.

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