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 printouts of the votes polled during EVM demonstration at First Level Checking (FLC).
This will be followed even in the ensuing Bihar polls and all the by-elections and general elections in the future.
“A printout of the results of the mock poll as well as a sequential printout 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 the 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 the EVMs at least 1,000 votes should be polled. In the rest of the machines, the number of votes polled during the mock poll should be to the satisfaction of the representatives of the political parties.
