In pursuance of instructions from the Chief Electoral Officer, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) will take up checking of all Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) through the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad from May 17.
About 10,000 EVMs are with the GHMC. It has made arrangements for checking of EVMs by authorised engineers and technicians of ECIL. The CEO, Andhra Pradesh, wanted first level checking of EVMs by the engineers of ECIL before the elections.
GHMC officials told Express that the decision to check the EVMs was taken as it was noticed that some switches malfunctioned just before polling in the past. To ensure checking of all switches, the first level checking will be done in the presence of a representative of the CEO or GHMC officials.
The officials said all the EVMs would be tested with at least 10 dummy votes polled for each candidate. Earlier, EVMs were checked randomly but this time, the Election Commission is particular that all the 10,000 EVMs available with the GHMC should be checked thoroughly.
Voters’ Survey
GHMC has taken up door-to-door survey of voters in 15 Assembly constituencies to rectify mistakes in voters’ list. The number of voters in the 15 constituencies is 31.59 lakh.
The survey will continue up to June 15. GHMC Additional Commissioner (Elections), Sivaparvathi told Express that BLOs will visit house-to-house and correct mistakes if any.
The officials may ask for colour photographs as the Election Commission proposes to provide colour plastic cards , she said. The voters list should be modified completely by January 1, 2014 without mistakes.