00:31Karnataka elections 2018: Congress alleges that EVMs malfunctioning

BENGALURU: Malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) has hampered voting in at least five polling stations in Karnataka in the first half of polling, delaying the process.Serpentine queues were seen at polling stations in Dakshina Kannada district’s Uppinangady, Shivajinagar constituency in Bengaluru, Banahatti in Bagalkot, MM Doddi in Yadgir and Bhavaninagar in Hubballi because of faulty EVMs.There were to be a total of over 58,000 polling stations in the state, of which a few hundreds are not polling—RR Nagar constituency polls have been deferred while Jayanagar was countermanded after a candidate’s death—and on average, the ECI estimates that about 2% of EVMs deployed for any elections could fail, and as a precaution it is mandated that 25% additional numbers are procured as buffer.While these EVMs are ready for deployment, there has been an unavoidable delay given the logistics, one official told TOI. Also, several voters found their names missing from the list and had to return disappointed, while confusion over polling stations—despite the Election Commission app working efficiently—saw many more people run around.24% voting so farNotwithstanding these glitches and a few other minor hiccups, voting has been brisk across the state, with a little over 24% already having cast their votes by 11.30 am. More than 10.6% had voted as early as 9.15am.Political observers say that the trend is generally that the percentage is high in the morning, and dips in the afternoon. Whether or not Karnataka will surpass the 2013 figure will depend on how many people turn up post tea, and how the weather behaves.