According to the consolidate data available with the office of the Chief Electoral Office in Thiruvananthapuram, as many as 174 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) malfunctioned at various polling booths across the state during the polling held for 16th Lok Sabha election on Thursday.
Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sabu Paul Sebastian has said that out of the total 174 EVMs, 126 were found to be malfunctioning during the mock polls held at polling booths on Thursday morning and 48 after the polls started.
He said though there were 21, 424 polling booths across the state, as many as 25,000 EVMs were made available in the state. “Accordingly, the rate of malfunctioning is 0.7 per cent,” he said.
He said the machines used for polling first undergoes First Level Check (FLC) at the strong rooms at least a month before the polling. As many as 10 per cent of the machines are checked by casting 1,000 votes, and for the rest of the EVMs, the manufactures conduct the inspection of all the components of the gadgets to make sure that they do not have any fault during the FLC.
After the randomisation of the EVMs at the Assembly constituency and booth-levels to ensure that no malpractice is conducted on machines during the polls, the next inspection of the machines are conducted on the polling day before the poll begins at the booth. This is done in the presence of the polling agents of each political party.
‘Matter of Concern’
Though the officials at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of the state are playing down the rate of malfunctioning, voters and political parties have expressed serious concerns over the malfunctioning of EVMs and the defects the EVMs showed for the first time in the state during the polls.
Though the consolidated data shows that only 174 EVMs had malfunctioned, ‘Express’ has learnt from the officials at the helm of affairs of elections in the district that as many as 49 Ballot Units (BUs) and 51 Control Units (CUs) had malfunctioned during mock voting and even after the polling began in Thirssur district on Thursday.
Besides that, the officials at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer and political leaders say that the issue of the lights against the symbol of different candidates blinking while the voter cast vote for a single candidate, was something unheard of till Thursday.
Former Revenue Minister K P Rajendran of CPI, who has filed a complaint with the Assistant Returning Officer of Thrissur about such a malfunctioning of the EVM at the 32nd booth of Thrissur Assembly constituency at Poonkkunnam Govt HSS, said it was for the first time he came across such defects. “At times the EVMs may show defects during mock polls, but such defects that create uncertainty over the votes cast by the voters are a matter of concern,” he said.
