4,600 plaints of glitches in EVMs, VVPATs

Around 4,600 electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter-verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs) malfunctioned during the state Assembly election process on Monday.

Around 4,600 electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter-verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs) malfunctioned during the state Assembly election process on Monday.

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More than 3,600 VVPATs, accounting for 3.56% of the machines, broke down and led to delays in the voting process at polling stations across the state.

The Election Commission (EC) set up EVMs and VPATs at each of the 96,661 polling booths in the 288 constituencies. However, more than 0.5% of these EVMs developed technical glitches and had to be replaced. Though the percentage is not unprecedented, the state body of the EC has sent a report to the Election Commission of India regarding the issue.

“We received 361 complaints, including 151 from the Opposition and 90 from the ruling parties, about the malfunctioning machines. The glitches were fixed within minutes by our officers at the polling stations,” said Baldev Singh, chief electoral officer, Maharashtra.

According to EC officials, the VVPATs are prone to technical glitches because they are more sensitive to the weather. “Around 3.56% is high, though not unprecedented. In Bhandara-Gondia and Palghar by-polls two years ago, more than 6% of VVPATs had broken down, leading to major chaos. Glitchy EVMs is a routine phenomenon. The voting process did not halt for more than 15-20 minutes, by which time replacement machines were set up,” said one official.

Congress monitored the highest number of malfunctioning machines from its war room in Mumbai.

“We made 227 complaints to the Election Commission or their respective officers and the glitches were fixed, accordingly. In minority-dominated areas, the EVMs were working slowly. One needs to check if there was any deliberate tampering behind the problem,” said Avinash Pande, Congress leader, and war room in-charge.

The Election Commission keeps around 20% of EVMs and 30% of VVPATs on standby, to ensure immediate replacement and to avoid delay in the voting process. Voters from Cheeta Camp, also complained that a number of their names were not in the voting lists despite having registered to cast their vote.