‘Claims of vote surge in last hour are false’: Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer | Latest news India

The opposition has raised doubts about the functioning of the EVMs, claiming that they can be controlled remotely. Can EVMs be modified?

It has been proven time and again that EVMs cannot be tampered with. The Supreme Court upheld the use of EVMs. The machine consists of a control unit, a voting unit and a Voter Verified Paper Audit (VVPAT) unit. The control unit has a burned-in chip whose programming cannot be changed. The control unit records only the number of candidates who vote. VVPAT was introduced for transparency. Shows the voter’s symbol choice.

There are two parts to EVM security – technical and administrative.

It is technically impeccable, without the possibility of a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. Its chip cannot be reprogrammed.

The administrative side ensures the transparency of the process – in fact, after candidates are finalized, they are invited for inspection.

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Please explain the process from the time of voting to the calibration of the votes by the polling officers.

After the voter presses the button on the voting unit, the vote is recorded and the VVPAT unit displays the symbol. At the end of the day, the EVM displays the total number of votes. Only on the day of counting, when the “result” button is pressed, the votes polled by each candidate are displayed. A voter can press the EVM button only once.

Many candidates ask for a burnt memory chip check. What is the procedure?

The EC has an established procedure in this regard, as per the directive of the Supreme Court. Accordingly, the EVMs chosen by a candidate will be taken out for verification to understand whether they are functioning properly.

The Opposition also raised doubts about the increase in the number of new voters just five months before the election. What is your point of view?

New voters are registered every year. Now, the EC has given four deadlines for first-time voter registration; earlier there was only one deadline – January 1.

Apart from this, we also undertook many activities under SVEEP (Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation) which led to increase in registrations. The registration process is transparent – ​​each registration is open for appeal for one week.

Read also: “Difference in EVM votes, but they have no proof,” says Sharad Pawar after Maharashtra poll loss

Videos of candidates and party workers advocating a distortion of the number of votes and voters in some villages have gone viral. Some candidates also said they got zero votes in areas where their families live. Will there be an investigation into this?

These allegations turned out to be false. No zero votes were cast and no additional votes were counted but voted. Our district election officers rejected this claim.

What about claims of a spike in voting in the last hour of voting?

It is a false statement. The flow of voters remained strong from 7 am until the end of the day on November 20. A similar trend was seen in the 2019 assembly elections as well. Some try to draw parallels between the voting patterns of Jharkhand and Maharashtra. In Jharkhand, polling ended at 5 pm and in Maharashtra it ended at 6 pm; and people standing in line at 6 p.m. have the right to vote even after this time.

In Jharkhand, people are known to vote early. In Maharashtra, people also appear in the evening.

There are allegations of stall capture in Parli, Beed. What has been the EC’s action so far? Don’t you think repolling was necessary? Can people vote without fear if the atmosphere is very intimidating?

Cabin capture is a serious term. There was no such event in Parli. Some people created a ruckus and the police responded to the occasion. Voting continued after EVMs were replaced wherever needed. The repoll is taken into account only when the documents are examined the day after the vote. I found no need for this.