Karnataka 7th to use EVMs with new technology

BENGALURU: Karnataka will be the seventh state to use Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in the upcoming Assembly elections. The other states to have done this are Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

“We had received 73,850 VVPAT machines to cover 56,694 polling booths,’’ Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar told mediapersons at Nirvachana Nilaya on Wednesday. On the directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI), VVPATs were introduced to make the election process transparent, he added. A high-end EVM called M3 EVM is likely to be introduced on an experimental basis in Bengaluru for the first time. With the use of VVPATs, the number of polling personnel will increase by 25 per cent, he said.