THIRUVANNATHAPURAM: Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Kaul has said that the voting for Lok Sabha elections was totally satisfactory at all levels. The voting machines performed better than the previous years, he said in a statement on Saturday.
The malfunctioning rate of the electronic voting machines (EVM) was much lower than the average 5% in previous elections. “This time, only 0.44% of ballot units and control units, and 2.1% of VVPATs experienced malfunction,” he said. The public realised that everything circulated by the media and on social media regarding the EVMs was not true. According to the CEO, in the commission’s assessment, the polling process was excellent despite adverse weather conditions and political contexts.
Kaul said the commission had adopted a new method to completely avoid human intervention in the deployment of election staff.
The arrangement was made with the help of order software, an election personnel management system. Details of officers in all districts were provided in the software, facilitating an interference-free deployment.
All polling officers were given training. At some booths, polling got delayed when officers became extra vigilant to ensure the genuineness of voters by checking their records, he said.
“All serious complaints related to duplicate entries in voters’ lists were investigated and no substantial issue was found. Remedial actions were taken in all identified duplicate cases. A meticulous and complex purification of the voters’ list was conducted,” said Kaul.
The CEO said there was no major law and order issue in the state that disrupted voting. Excellent security was provided by 66,303 security officers. After voting, all voting machines were securely stored in 20 centres spread across the state. The machines will be taken out in the presence of political party representatives on the counting day, June 4.