VVPAT machine dispatches a slip with the symbol of the party for which a person has voted for. VVPAT machine dispatches a slip with the symbol of the party for which a person has voted for.

Maharashtra’s first attempt at the use of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines for elections to local bodies was a success. But it took over 10 hours to tally the paper slips with the electronic vote count, forcing the outcome to spill over to the next day. The Maharashtra Election Commission had deployed VVPAT machines across 31 polling stations covering four seats in the Nanded-Waghala municipal poll, which was held on October 11.

The VVPAT is a machine that dispatches a slip with the symbol of the party for which a person has voted for. When a voter presses a button on the EVM to select the party he or she votes for, the slip briefly appears on the VVPAT system for the voter to see, after which it falls into a secure box, enabling maintaining a paper trail of all the votes case.

While VVPATs add to the cost of an election, the demand for their use has increased following allegations raised regarding large-scale tampering or manipulation of EVMs, which the Election Commission has refuted as baseless. In Nanded, about 16,960 votes were cast in polling booths with VVPAT machines.

“The paper audit trail of each vote cast was tallied with the electronic count. There was a 100 per cent match,” said Shekhar Channe, Secretary, Maharashtra Election Commission, who was present in Nanded for the counting process on October 12. Considering this was the first time VVPATs were being used in the civic polls, the state Election Commission used a two-step counting process. “The paper audit trails in the secure box were first counted in the round-wise format. This was then matched with the normal EVM vote count using the controlling unit. The outcome for these seats was declared thereafter,” said Channe, adding that the entire exercise took over 10 hours.

Counting for 77 out of the 81 seats in the Nanded civic body, where the VVPATs was not deployed, began around 10 am on October 12. By 3 pm, most of the results for these seats had come. The counting for the remaining four seats began around 4 pm under intense supervision, and was underway till 2.30 am, Friday. Interestingly, some of the candidates were even seen asking the election authorities to discontinue the paper trail count to speed up the process. But this request was turned down.

“Since this was the first time the technology was being used, we wanted to check its veracity. This is the reason why we counted each and every paper audit trail,” said Channe. While the election authorities had initially toyed with the plan of declaring a result following a count of the paper trails, they eventually decided against it. “Under normal circumstances, a paper audit trail is tallied only in cases where there is a discrepancy or a complaint raised against the functioning of the EVM. We had received no such complaints in Nanded, but still went ahead with it,” said Channe.

Earlier, some technical snags had forced the authorities to withdraw the VVPAT machine plan for six other polling stations. The VVPAT machines, used in Nanded, were provided free-of-cost by the Electronic Corporation of India Limited, a public sector enterprise.

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