Ending suspense, the Election Commission will announce the final date for the eagerly awaited Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) challenge on Saturday. “We will announce the schedule for the EVM challenge during the press conference on Saturday,” an EC spokesperson said.

Before announcing the challenge to break into its EVM, engineers of Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL), will hold a live demonstration of the EVMs along with VVPATs (voter verifiable paper audit trail) machines to show their functionality and how robust and foolproof their machines are.

Chief Election Commissioner, Nasim Zaidi had said at an All-Party meeting on May 12 that political parties will have 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 Bhawan.

At the all-party meet, most parties said EVMs could be used for future elections if they came with a paper trail machine, which will enable the electorate to check if their vote has been registered against the person of their choice.

Some parties, however, were of the view that the EVMs cannot be trusted and the Commission should revert to the old ballot paper system.

Analysis

After several opposition parties urged the EC to revert to ballot paper system, the parliamentary committee had summoned senior officials of the poll panel to discuss issues related to the reliability of EVMs. The poll panel told a parliamentary standing committee on Friday that EVMs are tamper-proof and very reliable.The EC has decided to use VVPAT or paper trail machines in all future elections.