KOCHI: The VVPAT which was designed to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and also to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results, it irked several voters who complained about the delay which was caused by the machines. According to them, the voting procedures were delayed mainly because of the VVPAT machines.
In almost all the booths, the voters had to wait more than one hour to cast their vote.
“Normally, a voter needs a minimum of 2-3 minutes to complete the voting procedures. But with the induction of VVPAT, additional one minute has been added into it. Altogether it takes almost four minutes for a voter to come out from the polling station. Though the VVPAT is to restrict malfunction it created a lot of issues for the voters as they waited more than one and a half hours to cast their vote,” said Gangadharan, a voter under Ernakulam HPC.
“The printout display time can be reduced to 2-3 seconds. Since the purpose of the same is to detect malfunction and fraud there is no need for it to display for 7 seconds,” said a polling officer who didn’t want to reveal his name.