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.
The Election Commission has rubbished any allegations of misuse of the EVMs.
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.
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.
Polling in other booths of these constituencies were held on February 8.
The last date for filing of nominations is September 22; scrutiny will be taken up the next day.
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.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party head Ajit Pawar on Monday said discussions were underway among the Mahayuti partners to finalise a formula for the new government formation in the state.
The names of candidates in Braille script on electronic voting machines to help visually challenged voters and deployment of helicopters to ferry people from remote areas to the polling booths are some of the special features of the upcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh this year. Chief Electoral Officer I V Subba Rao told reporters on Wednesday that every EVM will have a strip in Braille with the names of the candidates and other details.
The counting of votes for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls along with six assembly and one Lok Sabha by-elections will commence at 8 am on Thursday with prohibitory orders in place around counting halls to ensure peace and tranquillity.
Under the process, Braille symbols would be installed on the EVMs, thus visually handicapped people should not have any problem in exercising their franchise, a NIVH spokesperson said.
Vidisha seat fell vacant following the resignation of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan while Bharatiya Jan Shakti founder-president and former chief minister Uma Bharti put in her papers from Malehra.
In a significant move, the 13th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, to be held in Gujarat from January 7 to 9, might see the overseas citizen of India and person of Indian origin cards getting clubbed, External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Monday.
Chief electoral officers will brief Lyngdoh on February 4.
Strong rooms spread across the city storing the electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being heavily guarded, with a 'three-layer security ring'. Tight security arrangements have also been put in place at various centres across the national capital.
The Delhi CM said that the people of India won't forgive the Election Commission and the BJP for manipulating the Constitution.
India's leading Islamic seminary at Deoband and the famous Aligarh Muslim University -- widely acknowledged as the think tank of Indian Muslims -- hold much sway on the electorate in a large part of this region.
Barring some stray incidents in some polling stations at Dimapur-I and the destruction of an electronic voting machine at Tuensang Sadar II, the polling passed off peacefully.
'We do not think the EC is doing enough to address issue of EVM malfunctioning'
The polls for Arunachal Pradesh will be held on October 7.
'They refuse to be transparent. They refuse to be accountable.'
The major players in Bihar are the ruling alliance of the Janata Dal-United and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Opposition alliance of mahagathabandhan led by the Rashtriya Janata Dal with the Congress and three Left parties.
'For politicians, winning the next election has become more important than economic stability of the country and broader national interest.'
EVM -- described as the "devil" by one worried voter -- was the hot topic of discussion among the people
Additionally, the Haryana police and home guard personnel will be deployed for security during the elections, he said.
She also said that the BJP will not be able to maintain law and order in Uttar Pradesh.
If there is no possibility of NRIs coming to India to vote, why should they get enrolled, asks Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath.
The Lok Sabha election is the biggest democratic undertaking on Earth, with hundreds of millions of voters casting their ballot. Here are some astounding numbers to show just how massive this election will be.
The protesters, including AAP MLAs and newly appointed Delhi convener Gopal Rai, alleged that the manipulation of electronic voting machines was killing democracy.
Tushar Dedha of the ABVP won the post of DUSU president, defeating NSUI's Hitesh Gulia by a margin of 3,115 votes. Dedha got 23,460 votes and Gulia 20,345.
7,06,252 people or 1.7 per cent of the voters opted for the option whereby they preferred not to vote for any candidate while exercising their democratic right.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi has been sent as a special officer to oversee the counting process in Meerut and Bihar's CEO to Varanasi.
There are 763 registered voters among around a thousand residents of this remote village in Alirajpur assembly constituency, reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, but no candidate has bothered to visit the place, locals said on Thursday.
This is for the first time in a Lok Sabha election that results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines.
Gupta tried to raise the issue of alleged corruption in land deals involving Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Public Works Department Minister Satyendra Jain.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani appeared to be on the same page as Narendra Modi, a rarity since the acrimony over naming PM candidate, as he endorsed the Gujarat chief minister's view that there that there should be compulsory voting along with the 'none-of-the-above' option.
4 EVMs and a similar number of VVPATs were found at the house of a TMC leader in West Bengal's Howrah district, following which a poll official was suspended.
