CHENNAI: Voters in Tamil Nadu can now verify if their votes have been cast for their preferred candidate in the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) for April 6 Assembly elections in the State.
“The State has 88,937 polling stations. Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines will be equipped with EVMs in all polling stations for the Assembly elections,” Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo said here on Monday.
Speaking to reporters, Sahoo said a total of 1,55,102 ballot units and 1,14,205 control units -- two components of the EVMs have been received for the elections. “We have also received 1,20,807 VVPAT machines. Every constituency will have 30 to 50% of VVPAT additionally for replacement in the event of malfunctions on polling day.”
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Sahoo added that EVMs and VVPATs will be sent to constituencies after completing the randomization. “Then, under the supervision of District Electoral Officer, another randomization of EVMs will be done and sent to the polling stations.”
The VVPAT was first introduced in 17 constituencies in the 2016 Assembly elections. As soon as the voters press the ballot unit of an EVM to cast their votes, the VVPAT will generate a vote receipt containing information such as symbol, picture of the candidate, and the serial number of the candidate. The receipt will be displayed to voters for seven seconds.
Following this, it will drop inside the container of the machine, which can be accessed only by polling officers.
As per the last trial test, paper rolls in VVPAT can generate up to 1,350 vote receipts.