Reports of EVMs showing extra vote to BJP in mock poll in Kasargod are false: EC

The Election Commission of India on Thursday dismiissed the allegations that four Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) gave an extra vote to BJP in a mock poll in the Kasargod Lok Sabha constituency.

Going against what their own official had told Kerala-based media house Malayala Manorama, the ECI told the Supreme Court that reports of EVM generating extra votes for BJP in mock polls as false. The SC was hearing a batch of pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), an independent vote verification system which enables an elector to see whether his vote has been cast correctly.

However, Kasaragod assistant returning officer Binumon P told Malayala Manorama that four machines had glitches when the power was turned on. In all machines, the VVPAT would have the message not to be counted but in these four machines the slips also had the party symbol of the first candidate on the list, which belonged to the BJP. Further, he had told them that it was not a technical error and he had submitted a report to the Collector.

Erring EVMs

But the ECI stuck to their guns in the court and said this report was false. "These news reports are false. We have verified the allegation from the district collector and it appears that they are false. We will submit a detailed report to the court," senior deputy election commissioner Nitesh Kumar Vyas told a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta.

Earlier, during the day, the top court asked senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the Election Commission, to look into the issue after advocate Prashant Bhushan flagged the anomaly.

BJP gets additional votes

At least four EVMs registered additional votes for the BJP during a mock poll in Kasargod on April 17, LDF and UDF agents had alleged. The EVMs had ten options, including NOTA (None of the above). In the first round of mock polls, all the 194 EVMs were tested by casting votes against each of the 10 options. BJP's lotus option was the first one..

When all the options were pressed one by one, the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail gave two votes to the BJP in four machines. When the BJP's lotus symbol was not pressed this did not happen for other options in the same four machines, The error also did not happen when the machines were tested for the third time.

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