The Election Commission has stated on Wednesday that the required number of VVPATs and EVMs will be available in all the polling booths for the upcoming state and future general elections. In a statement by Election Commission mentioned ,”The commission is committed to 100 percent deployment of paper trail machines at all polling stations in future Lok Sabha and legislative Assembly elections”.
Considering the malfunctioning of Paper Trail machines in Kairana and Bhadara-Gondiya by polls in May this year the Election Commission has increased the required percentage of VVPATs from 125% to 135%. It also said that the hardware of the machines have been improved to minimise the failure rate.
The EC said, “In order to meet the requirement of 100 percent voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines for all polling stations for the upcoming Lok Sabha Election in 2019, the Commission placed an order of 17.45 lakh VVPATs to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad”.
It further added, “Till now 9.45 lakh units have been produced. Both the public sector firms have assured the Commission that the remaining VVPAT units (8 lakh) will be manufactured and supplied to the various states and Union Territories comfortably before the end of November this year.”
“An estimated 171 per cent Ballot Units, 125 per cent Control Units and 135 VVPAT units’ are required for upcoming Lok Sabha elections”, said EC.
The commission is routinely keeping a check on the status of production and supply of VVPAT units with the entrusted companies.
According to the reports, special care will be taken of VVPAT machines and anti-humidity thermal paper rolls will be used in high-humidity polling stations. The new VVPATs will also be equipped with a hood to tackle with the heat and light problems. The Technical Expert Committee (TEC) is meticulously supervising the process of production and incorporation of new features in the VVPATs. It is also ensuring that the work is completed within the time limit.
More VVPATs are required In case of any error in Ballot Unit or Control Unit of the EVM where the entire set of Ballot Unit, Control Unit and VVPAT is changed.
To avoid manhandling and malfunctioning of VVPAts by the human error, the polling staff will be undergoing training to correctly use the EVM and VVPAT for the 2019 elections.
In the last 20 years , EVMs were used in 113 state assembly elections and three Lok Sabha elections while VVPAT machines have been used since June 2017 along with EVMs in general as well as by-elections.