PANAJI
Amidst the heightened focus on efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) particularly after recent Supreme Court of India proceedings which ultimately ruled in favour of the technology, voters in Goa faced long delays in over half-a-dozen booths at multiple locations due to their malfunction throughout Tuesday’s polling for the two Lok Sabha seats “ North Goa and South Goa.
Technical glitches were cited by officials as reasons which led to polling being suspended in some cases for over an hour.
Such incidents where voting was halted and people had to face the inconvenience of the scorching heat for a bit longer were reported in Mapusa, Panaji, Davorlim, Benaulim, and Chaudi-Canacona.
The first reports of EVM malfunction on Tuesday came from Mapusa in North Goa around 9 am. A few minutes later, yet another booth in Davorlim which is part of the Navelim assembly segment of South Goa, reported EVM malfunction.
Engineers of public sector BHEL, which has the ECI contract for supply and maintenance of EVMs, were called in to rectify the glitches causing delay in voting for more than an hour.
Nonetheless the problem was resolved and voting in these two booths resumed more than an hour later.
There were at least two other booths where voting was interrupted because the VVPAT machines malfunctioned “ Benaulim and Chaudi-Canacona.
At Chaudi’s booth number 7, ironically a ‘model booth’, the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) screen malfunctioned prompting officials to halt voting for nearly 40 minutes.
“Voting resumed once the VVPAT issue was fixed under the supervision of the local Mamlatdar Jeetendra Bugde,” a voter from the constituency said.
Around the same time before noon, a booth in Panaji’s Mala area also reported an EVM snag where polling was suspended for about 45 minutes during which time the machine was fixed. However, during that interruption, the queue of voters waiting for their turn outside grew longer and many were disgruntled amidst the scorching heat.
Another glitch in the VVPAT machine was also reported in Benaulim. According to local MLA, Venzy Viegas, the voting process was halted there for almost an hour, creating hardships for voters in the summer heat.
There was no official word from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Ramesh Verma, IAS, on these incidents or the reasons for the malfunction of these EVMs and VVPAT machines.
