EC to hold live demo of EVMs, VVPATs today

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) will hold a live demonstration of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail System (VVPATs) in Delhi on Saturday.

At an all-party meeting on May 12, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi had said political parties had to demonstrate their claim that EVMs used in the recent Assembly polls could have been tampered with.

In 2009, the Commission had held out a similar challenge when it demonstrated the functioning of EVMs brought in from various parts of the country to Vigyan Bhavan here.

The EC will demonstrate the use of EVMs and paper trail machines at a media conference.
At the all-party meet, most of the parties said future elections should be held using EVMs provided they are attached to paper trail machines.

There were, however, some parties whose representatives said their faith in the machines has eroded and the EC should revert to the old ballot paper system.

While the BJP, CPI, CPI (M), AIADMK, DMK, NCP and JD(U) clearly supported the use of EVMs, provided paper trail machines are attached to it, BSP, AAP, Trinamool Congress said the paper ballot system was better and more transparent.

The Congress was of the view that if EVMs are used there should be transparency at every level so that political parties and voters are separately convinced about the reliability of the machine.

It said the Supreme Court has been stressing on more transparency, which necessarily does not mean use of EVMs. It said the use of paper trail machines with all EVMs in future elections was fine.

The BSP and the AAP had alleged that the machines used in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab were tampered with to favour the BJP.
Later, several other parties had joined the chorus and urged the EC to revert to paper ballots.