EVM/VVPAT Awareness Campaign at 136 polling Stations under Katigorah LAC to be held on 6 March

March 6: EVM/VVPAT awareness campaign has begun across the state with voters participating in mock voting to familiarise themselves with the device in connection with the ensuing Parliamentary Election, 2019.This awareness programme is going on in all the districts of Assam. The Assembly Level Master Trainers (ALTs) are deputed for carrying out this awareness programme. At Cachar too, the said awareness campaign for the voters is going on since mid February.

On 6 March, 2019 the EVM/VVPAT awareness campaign will be held  at 136 polling booths under Katigorah LAC. The demonstration and awareness of EVM/VVPAT is held throughout the country as per government instruction. On 6 March, a total of 27 Assembly Level Master Trainers (ALTs) along with staff and security personnel will be engaged in this connection to demonstrate EVM/VVPAT in the various polling stations at Katigorah under Cachar district.

The District Election Office has already instructed the Booth Level Officers (BLO) to inform the voters in their respective Polling Stations to be present there as per the schedule declared the by the Election Branch of the Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Cachar. As of now, Demonstration and Awareness schedule has been finalised till 12 March, 2019.

Click Here for  EVM VVPAT Training Schedule at Cachar from 6 March to 12 March, 2019

Around 22.3 lakh Ballot Units, 16.3 lakh Control Units and nearly 17.3 lakh VVPATs will be used for the forthcoming elections in 2019. This number of machines includes the buffer stock for training as well as replacements.

Till date, Electronic Voting Machines have been used in 113 General Elections of State Assemblies and 3 Lok Sabha Elections since 2000. Use of EVMs has ended the days of booth capturing and the delays and errors in counting of ballot papers. Also during the ballot paper era, large number of votes in each Assembly Constituency ended up being invalid. There have been instances of invalid votes being higher than even the winning margin in several elections.

Addition of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) to the EVM has helped strengthen the voters’ trust and transparency of the voting process. A VVPAT is an independent printer system attached with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) that allows the voters to verify that their votes are cast as intended.  VVPAT slips will be visible to the voter for seven seconds behind the transparent screen of VVPAT, before falling into the sealed compartment at the base of the machine.

The specially designed thermal paper, to be used in the VVPAT is capable of retaining the printout for more than five years so that the printout is available for manual verification by the Court, if required in need of a dispute for cross checking the counting of votes cast.

The EVMs and VVPATS being used in the ECI election process are manufactured only at the two premium PSUs – Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) under the technical expertise of an independent Technical Expert Committee and supervision of the Election Commission making them absolutely tamper proof.