AMN
Gujarat will be the first big state where the coming Assembly elections will be conducted with Electronic Voting Machine equipped with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). State Chief Electoral Officer and Principal Secretary Mr. B. B. Sawain announced this at a press conference in Gandhinagar yesterday.
He said this is for the first time that entire Gujarat Assembly elections will be held using the with VVPAT covering all the 50,128 polling booths. Giving demonstration of the EVM with VVPAT to news persons, Mr Sawain said that as many as 70,182 VVPAT machines will be used in the state for the Assembly elections. He said the VVPAT was also used on a pilot basis in 2012 in the state.
Mr Swain said that due to VVPAT machines during the poll, the voters will experience the transparency and would enjoy a new right. He said that VVPAT system takes 7-second time to register each vote thus, a representation has also been made before the Election Commission to extend the timings of voting. According to the latest electoral list, it has as many as 4.33 crore registered voters in the state.
The Chief Electoral Officer said that Gujarat will be the second state after Goa to use the VVPAT system for the Assembly elections.