VVPATs to be installed with EVMs in Maharashtra

Election Commissioner, Ashok Lavasa on Tuesday said that all polling booths in the state will have a voter verifiable paper audit (VVPAT) unit along with electronic voting machines (EVM) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Lavasa was speaking to reporters after reviewing poll preparedness in Maharashtra.

“All polling stations will have VVPATs. This is for the first time that 100 per cent VVPATs will be used,” Lavasa said. He said that VVPATs were used in the recent Lok Sabha by-polls in the state.

VVPATs, which generate a paper slip with the name of the candidate for whom the vote has been cast, will help voters verify if their vote is going to the right candidate. The chief electoral officer (CEO) of Maharashtra has also directed for VVPAT awareness campaigns to be conducted and so far 92,428 polling stations have been covered and 37.37 lakh mock votes have been cast.

The ECI will also include a social media expert in media certification and monitoring committees (MCMC), which handles pre-certification of campaign material, like ads. The mandate of the committee also is to certify advertisements and examine paid news.

Numbers Speak

As on January 31, 2019, Maharashtra has 8,73,30,484 voters including 4,57,02,579 men, 4,16,25,819 women and 2,086 belonging to the third gender. Around 96.28% voters have their photographs on electoral rolls and 96.68% have been given electoral photo id cards