the goan I network
MARGAO
South Goa Returning Officer Ajit Roy has conceded that around seven Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), besides 22 VVPATs had to be replaced at some of the polling stations in the constituency on Tuesday, even as he termed the polling across the constituency as by and large peaceful.
Roy, however, hastened to add that the Election Commission has put up a good show, saying just seven out of the 810 EVMs developed technical snag, which roughly works around just one per cent.
“As many as seven EVMs and 22 VVPATs were replaced during Tuesday’s polling as the polling officials came across technical snags during the course of polling”, Roy said.
When asked whether the election officials did not check the machines before their commissioning, he shot back, saying all the EVMs were verified and checked by polling 100 votes in the presence of the representatives of the political parties, adding “still these errors happened here and there”.
He, however, said the EC has done a wonderful job when less than one per cent of the EVMs have conked off out of the 810 EVMs used in the polling stations across South Goa. As far as Cuncolim episode is concerned, Roy said he was personally present at the polling station after the incident was brought to his notice. “Polling was not continued after there was discrepancy during the mock polling. I immediately rushed to the polling booth and got the EVM replaced. Polling at the booth resumed at around 8.34 am after the mock poll in the presence of the polling agents,” he said, while attributing the episode to human error or a technical snag.
Meanwhile, a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machine developed a technical snag at the Fatrade booth of Benaulim Assembly segment in the morning, prompting the presiding officer to keep the polling on hold for some time.
The error in the VVPAT was detected by the polling officials and the snag was attributed to a cable defect. However, when officials bought a cable, it could not resolve the issue and it was only after officials brought a new cable that polling was resolved, but not before keeping the voters waiting for some time for no fault of theirs.
