A range of amusing names of poll candidates in the fray in Meghalaya assembly election is bound to make the name panel in the Electronic Voting Machines sound interesting in many constituencies on February 23.
Amid sporadic violence that left a 16-year-old boy dead and around 10 injured, nearly 77 per cent of 1.76 crore voters on Monday exercised their franchise under tight security to elect 117 members to the Punjab assembly.
The Supreme Court said on Wednesday it cannot 'control the elections' or issue directions simply because doubts have been raised about the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), as it reserved its judgment on a clutch of petitions claiming the polling devices can be tinkered with to manipulate the results.
Rediff.com's Bikash Mohapatra, who is in the US to cover the presidential election, finds out that the American voter does not really trust the electronic voting machine.
Ninety nine per cent votes were cast at a polling station in Karong constituency while 95 per cent votes were cast at the Wunghon government primary school polling station in Ukhrul constituency in Ukhrul district.
The Election Commission is working on a new design of Electronic Voting Machines, which will accommodate more than the present maximum limit of 64 candidates.
Bypolls in three assembly constituencies in as many states passed off peacefully on Monday with around over 70 per cent voter turnout, though some technical glitches in electronic voting machine were reported in Tamil Nadu and the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal alleged that the Central Reserve Police Force was "influencing" voters.
The main fight is between Congress candidate V S Sivakumar, fielded by the ruling United Democratic Front, and the Communist Party of India nominee Pannian Ravindran of the Opposition Left Democratic Front.
Four persons, including two rag-pickers, were arrested in connection with theft of six Electronic Voting Machines in Vijayawada, which were recovered, police said on Monday.
The Commission has decided to refer to the Technical Expert Committee for detailed examination of 'voter verifiable paper trail' in EVMs in all its aspects through a process of wide consultation, the EC said in a press note on Friday.
While the RLD has fought the just-concluded polls in tie up with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, the office-bearers of the BKU, which was part of the anti-farm laws protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre, insists it is an 'apolitical' group.
Twelve constituencies in the Telangana belt of Andhra Pradesh will go to polls on Tuesday.
Tiwari said that all the preparations have been made for the first phase of the polls and all the polling parties have left for their respective polling centers.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
The Supreme Court observed on Monday a person making a "false statement" "must know the consequence" as it leads to stalling the electoral process.
With Lok Sabha polls next year and assembly elections round the corner in some key states, the government cleared a proposal on Thursday to procure 1.80 lakh Electronic Voting Machines.
The Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to consider listing a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the Constitutional validity of a provision of the Representation of People Act which had led to the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs) instead of ballot papers for polls in the country.
The former Congress president alleged that PM Modi had a "monopoly over corruption".
'These machines are standalone devices with no external connectivity, making hacking impossible. The chip in EVMs is one-time programmable, ensuring no changes can be made. Strict security and administrative protocols further prevent any tampering'
The EVMs are based on a technology where they work as aggregator of votes in direct elections such as the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
According to the CEC, while Tripura will go to polls on February 23, the elections in Meghalaya will be held on March 3 and in Nagaland on March 5. The elections in all the three states will be held in a single phase and electronic voting machines will be used this year. While counting of votes for Tripura and Meghalaya is scheduled to be held on March 7, in Nagaland, the counting will take place a day later.
The state police in poll-bound Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh will be kept away from guarding the strong rooms where the Electronic Voting Machines will be stored after polling.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to inform it whether a system incorporating ballot papers with Electronic Voting Machines was possible to implement during elections.Acting on a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, a division bench of Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice Manmohan directed the EC's counsel to file an affidavit in this regard by October 21.
Central Para Military Forces personnel were guarding the EVMs, stored in 41 counting centres and securitymen in adequate strength would be deployed inside and outside the counting centres to ensure its conduct in an orderly and peaceful manner.
In the backdrop of allegations by certain political parties that the Electronic Voting Machines could be hacked, the Election Commission on Thursday said EVMs were and are tamper proof.
Rediff.com has highlighted many stories about the controversy surrounding the EVMs and the growing opposition to their usage. In a letter to rediff.com, a representative of Election commissioner Dr S Y Quraishi's office has clarified the EC's position over the matter, which is threatening to blow up into a major issue of national concern.
A day after Election Commission rejected his claim that Electronic Voting Machines are not tamper-proof, former bureaucrat Omesh Saigal on Tuesday stuck to his charge that a particular software can be used to rig the polls.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani on Sunday found support from rivals Communist party of India - Marxist, Janata Dal - Secular and Lok Janshakti Party for his suggestion for the re-introduction of ballot papers in place of Electronic Voting Machines.Advani has not cast any doubts on the results of the Lok Sabha elections but feels the country should revert to ballot papers, starting with the Maharashtra assembly elections in October and some more states later.
Former Union law and commerce minister Subramaniam Swamy has written a letter to the Election Commission, demanding a paper trail to 'substantiate and verify the election results' obtained from Electronic Voting Machines.In his letter, Swamy has argued that it is possible to manipulate the EVMs, by planting a software programme that could produce an election result in favour of a particular candidate.
Political parties on Monday said that the Election Commission should take steps to enhance the confidence of people on use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in polls in view of apprehensions that they could be tampered with.
The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Election Commission to explore the possibility of introducing Vote Verifier Paper Audit Trail in EVMs to maintain paper record of each vote for upcoming assembly polls in five states and next general election in 2014.
The man who showed that Electronic Voting Machines could be tampered with will be in police custody for another two days in the EVM theft case even as a demand was made in Parliament for an all-party meeting to discuss in depth their "vulnerability" in elections.
The arrest of Hariprasad has come as a major set back for all those activists who are on a mission to prove that the Electronic Voting Machine can be tampered with. Hari Prasad, the technical coordinator of VeTA (Citizens for Verifiability, Transparency and Accountability in Elections), was arrested from Hyderabad on Saturday in connection with the theft of an EVM from Mumbai.
Holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state assemblies would need at least five constitutional amendments and a large number of additional EVMs and paper-trail machines costing "thousands of crores of rupees", but will yield a huge long-term saving to the public exchequer, officials said on Friday.
The Election Commission has rubbished any allegations of misuse of the EVMs.
The last date for filing of nominations is September 22; scrutiny will be taken up the next day.
Polling in other booths of these constituencies were held on February 8.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Nitin Gadkari on Friday said his party was not against Electronic Voting Machines or the use of technology in elections, but wanted paper back-up, as it had not been proved conclusively that EVMs were tamper-proof. Gadkari insisted that reservations about EVMs were not confined to the BJP alone and many other political parties, including the Orissa unit of the Congress, were wary of its use."The system should be modernised," Gadkari said.
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
