All Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines required for the Lok Sabha elections 2019, will be delivered to the Election Commission of India before the end of the year.
According to an official press release issued by the ECI on Wednesday, the EVMs will be delivered by September 30, 2018 and VVPATs will be delivered well before end of November 2018, “well within the time required for making pre-poll preparations”.
The announcement assumes significance in review of many political parties alleging that EVMs are not tamper proof, and VVPATs were a common demand. Also there were apprehensions that there may be a delay such that the machines cannot be pressed into service during the next general elections.
EVMs have been used in 113 state legislative assembly elections and three Lok Sabha elections over the last twenty years.
The Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines have been used along with the EVMs, since June 2017, for “enhanced voter verifiability.”
VVPAT deliveries, the ECI said, were delayed as the Technical Experts Committee on EVMs appointed by the commission analyses the technology stabilisation issues in the initial batches and incorporates essential design improvements.
In order to meet the requirement of VVPATs for 100 per cent saturation of all polling stations for the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the commission placed an order for 16.15 lakh VVPATs to be produced by the PSU manufacturers namely, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), Hyderabad, in May 2017.
The commission has so far received 36 per cent of the order. The ECI said comprehensive and systematic preparatory activities for the Lok Sabha elections, including the detailed First Level Checking (FLC) of EVMs and VVPATs have already commenced.