Election Commission has ordered repolling in 48 polling stations across 3 constituencies of Punjab, including Sangrur, Majitha and Muktsar. The decision was taken after it was found out that Voter Verified Audit Paper Trial (VVPAT) EVMs malfunctioned in the voting on 4th February. Along with the EVMs malfunctioning, there were EVMs in Moga and Sardulgarh constituencies which recorded the votes of the mock polling before the election. The election commission has ordered a repolling on all affected polling stations on 9th February.
Chief electoral officer of Punjab, V K Singh on Tuesday said that the repolling will take place on a total of 48 polling stations. 32 of which are for the Punjab Assembly Elections 2017 and 16 of them belong to the Amritsar Lok Sabha by-election polling. Repolling of all the polling stations will take place together on February 9th.
Out of the polling stations which had malfunctioning EVMs, 12 belong to Majitha constituency, 9 to Muktsar, 6 to Sangrur, 4 to Sardulgarh and 1 to Moga.
VVPAT generates a receipt and lets the voter verify if the vote went to the candidate whose button was pressed. It was used for the first time in the elections and was deployed with 6,668 EVMs in 33 assembly constituencies. 538 of the VVPATs were replaced in the trials and 187 of them were replaced while the polls were underway. The replacement of VVPATs during polling even affection voting on over 45 polling stations.
Election Commission had sought a report from the state election officers. AAM Aadmi Party leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Sanjay Singh had raised their concerns after they found out about the incident and had requested EC to increase the voting time.