123 polling stations goes through re-elections; faulty machines changed

On Monday’s by-elections, several polling booths had complaints of faulty machines. These stations are facing the re-elections today.

The Election Commission, taking into account the various complaints on Tuesday announced a repolling in 123 polling stations- 73 polling stations in Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana, 49 polling stations in Maharashtra’s Bhandara-Gondia and one polling station in Nagaland. This comes after the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines had developed a snag.

The repolling began from 7 am till 6 pm on Wednesday, official sources said.

Nearly 10% of the 10,300 VVPAT used in Monday’s by-elections across 10 states had developed faults and had to be replaced.

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The proportion of VVPAT machines that had to be replaced, however, was as high as 20% in the high-stakes by-elections to the Lok Sabha seats in Kairana and Bhandara Gondia.

Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat insists that there was no problem in the electronic voting machines on Monday. “There is no problem with EVMs. The problem was with VVPAT. The VVPATs machines used in these elections are new and used the first time,” said Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat.

The commission had, on Monday, said placing the VVPAT machines under direct light, mishandling and extreme heat could have been responsible for the high failure rate.

“If VVPATs are kept directly under the light it creates a problem,” Mr Rawat added.

To the opposition’s demands of ditching EVMs and going back to ballot papers, Mr Rawat said that would not be possible. “2019 Parliament elections will be held with VVPATs and three won’t be any problems,” he said.